


Whumptober 2019: Because Why Not

by NervousAsexual



Series: Whumptober 2019 But It's Not 2019 Anymore [1]
Category: Thief (Video Game Original Series), Thief (Video Games)
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, Broken Voice, Dehydration, Delirium, Dragged away, Explosions, Fever, Isolation, Shaky Hands, Stab Wound, Stitches, Unconsciousness, Whump, Whumptober 2019, and so we're calling this done, day 25 when absolutely bat wacky sideways, hope it isn't terrible, shackled, that escalated quickly, this is by far the most graphic thing i've ever posted under my own name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2020-12-20 16:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 22,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21059444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Prompts from here.Will I finish these? Probably not. Will that stop me from trying? Unlikely.Most of these take place in The Dark Project, since that's the game I replayed the most recently.





	1. Shaky Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Metal Age  
Mission: Running Interference

The lockpick sheared off with a faint _click_, and Garrett swore softly.

This was the third pick he would have to replace that week. At the rate he was going even Lady Rumford wouldn't have enough money to pay his rent.

He held out his hands flat before him and watched for the shaking to let up. It didn't. He balled his hands into fists, leaned against the door, and tried to think. To open the door now he'd need a key--or to call Basso in early, but that sounded like something the boxman would want to be paid for--and he wasn't sure he could keep it together enough to lift a key off one of the guards. It wasn't worth the hassle to open the damn door.

All the same, the kitchen boy had been passing through every half hour like clockwork to try the handle. Something must have been in there.

Garrett took the maps from his pocket and held them up to the faint light coming from the guard's post. Maybe there was another way in? But no. Two of the walls backed directly into the stone foundation, and clearly this door wasn't going to be picked so easily. The fourth wall was adjacent to the housekeeper's quarters, but he'd already swept through there and was fairly confident there weren't any secret passageways hidden in that room.

The smart thing to do would be to forget the storeroom, snatch up all the loot he could get to without being noticed, then signal Basso and get out of there. That was the smart thing to do... but it would irritate him forever to have explored every inch of this place except for one single room, and a room that clearly had something the servants were interested in.

With a sigh he tucked the broken pick back into his pocket and crept back down the hall to the kitchen.

There was only one guard he was sure he could get a key from. The guards where he'd come in were out; if he alerted one of them trying to sneak the key he might have time to blackjack them across the face, but the other would stick a sword in his ribs before the key was any help. There was one farther down, standing guard outside the kitchen, who plainly had a ring of keys, but he stood in an alcove well-lit by electric lighting. There was every chance that one of the three guards outside had a key, but of course with this broken lockpick he wasn't getting into the courtyard any time soon.

That left the dining room guard.

He hadn't touched the guy on his first trip through, because the dining room was well lit and the path the guard took around the room was erratic at best. But he'd seen something on the far side of the room: a darkened hole in the wall. A dumbwaiter. It had to go down to the kitchen, he was sure of it.

The kitchen boy brushed past him on his rounds, near enough to feel the movement of the air around him, and Garrett slipped back through the darkness to the kitchen.

Yes, there. Beyond the stove, past the wine cellar, tucked back in the corner, he could make out a darkened hole identical to the one a floor above. It was a dumbwaiter after all, he thought as he crept past the warmth of the stove. And by the looks of it, it was just about big enough for a small man.

Only one way to find out.

It was a tight fit, one that made him a little nervous. He felt out the dimensions of the frame with shaking hands--there was just enough room to turn from one side of the cart to the other. It took him a moment to feel out the switch, and the dumbwaiter gave a groan that should have woken everybody in the house and began moving.

Garrett pressed himself into the corner and closed his eyes. The jerky movement of the gears straining to lift him set his stomach to roiling, and the fact that the dumbwaiter smelled faintly of split pea soup didn't help much. At least if he got sick there wasn't much in his stomach to come up. He couldn't remember when he'd eaten last. Was it today? Or yesterday, rather; it was probably past midnight by now. He had an apple in his pocket that he'd lifted from the kitchen boy and a cucumber that had been left behind on the kitchen table, but it seemed like a lot of work to eat things that wouldn't sustain him very long.

Now there was light coming into the dumbwaiter, and now suddenly there he was in full view of the dining room. He clutched at the frame shakily--there was the guard, he was turning toward him, it seemed impossible that he couldn't see him, he was walking over--

The guard came over to the serving tray, scratched at his mustache, and turned to walk back. Garrett snatched the key from his belt before he moved out of reach.

His heart thumping loudly in his chest, Garrett let out a shaky breath and ran his eyes over the serving table. Mostly china, too easy to break and too cheap to sell, but there were three golden goblets mixed in with the crystal that looked to be worth something. He grabbed one--it was heavy, that was a good sign--slipped it into his bag, and reached for the others. As he did so, the trembling in his hands started again, and he brushed against a crystal wineglass.

Now his heart almost stopped. He watched the glass teeter precariously, grabbed for it, and succeeded only in knocking it out of reach.

It fell to the floor and shattered just as the guard turned.

The guard's eyes seemed to meet his, and Garrett hit the dumbwaiter switch and squeezed his eyes closed.

Forget the goblets, forget the storeroom, forget Jenivere. He'd fight his way out. He'd tell Basso to forget it, he could keep his damn favor, and then he'd leave them to it.

Just the same he cursed himself. How hard was it to pick up a goblet and bring it with him? What kind of thief just casually knocked crystal glasses onto the floor? That wasn't on Basso. That was his screw up.

He took hold of his sword, hand still trembling on the hilt. There wasn't room to draw it in the dumbwaiter. A flashbomb? There weren't so many guards that they could all escape the flash. It might work. Then he'd run off to the butler's rooms, and from there he could definitely lose any pursuers in the dark.

He took a deep breath as the dumbwaiter jolted down into the kitchen. The ache in his stomach sharpened...

There was no one there.

For a moment he held back, trying to get enough air into his lungs while being as quiet as he could. Where...? But, he realized, he hadn't actually heard the upstairs guard sound the alarm. Everything was quiet.

Garrett slipped down to the kitchen floor and ran a hand over his face. He still had the key. He could unlock the store room. Maybe Jenivere's room as well.

He moved through the kitchen and back down the hallway slowly, turning the key over and over in his hand. When he reached the door he took a few deep breaths to try and still his hands.

This better be worth it, he thought. He wrapped one hand around the door knob and gingerly lifted the key to touch it, unwilling to let the deafening sound of a key bumping a door happen. From there he eased the key into the lock and closed his eyes as he twisted it. Deep inside the lock the tumblers turned, and the door opened.

It was pitch black inside. Even after a few moments of waiting his eyes didn't adjust, so he crouched down and crept across the floor, trying to feel out the boundaries of the room. A lot of dirt. Stone walls. A crate... no, a number of crates, stacked against the wall. He stretched to feel how far the crates went, and his shaking hand brushed against the rough wood. A splinter buried itself in the flesh under his thumb. He swore again, pulled his hand back, and brought the entire stack crashing down.

They were empty, he realized, scrambling to right them again. Not only were they empty, they were covering a niche in the wall. There wasn't time to wonder about it; this time he could hear footsteps approaching. Only one set. The kitchen boy? A lone guard? He slipped behind the boxes, pressed himself to the wall, and held his breath.

The footsteps grew slower as they approached the storeroom. A soft, tremulous voice asked the darkness, "Hello? Is... is some one in here?"

The kitchen boy. Behind him Garrett could feel something heavy and metal poking uncomfortably into his back. He didn't dare try to move.

"Stop taffing with me like this! Please!"

He still had a flare left over from the stash he found in the workshop, but would it be enough to catch the boy's attention? He hated to waste an entire flash bomb on just one servant...

The boy stood quietly for a while, and the room was so silent Garrett was afraid he could hear his hands trembling. Then, finally, he spoke again: "Ugh. This place gives me the creeps." At last he finally walked away.

Garrett went limp with relief, his head bumping against the blocky piece of metal behind him. He was alone. Finally.

He struck up the flare and moved it slowly above him. Between the flickering of the flame and his own shaking hands it was hard to see, but he could just make out the thing against the wall. It looked to be a gear of some kind, and set to either side were cheap candlesticks. Some kind of shrine?

This had better not turn out to be another Pagan cult, he thought.

The flare flamed up once and then died to an ember, but not before he caught sight of some kind of offering beside the shrine. A silver tray (that would come with him) holding a single loaf of bread.

Probably stale, he thought, but hey, if it got his hands to stop shaking he'd even thank the cult.


	2. Explosion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett having a twinge of conscience counts as whump, right?
> 
> The Dark Project  
Mission: Into the Maw of Chaos

Too close. He was too close to the trapped eye.

But what could he do?

_You could run_, the voice in his head told him. _He left you the sword. Stick it in his throat and run._

The trickster would follow. Wherever he ran the clatter of cloven hooves would be there behind him, and nothing Garrett could do to him would kill him. If it were as easy as stabbing him, he would have been dead long ago. No, the eye was the only thing that would kill Constantine, and so long as Garrett stood in the trickster's summoning ground Constantine would as well.

_You don't have to be a hero. You got through his realm unnoticed before. You can do it again._

If he did that the eye might still go off. Maybe the trickster would take that as a sign he had failed. If Garrett could just get back to that first portal, get back to his own realm with the Eye in tow... But that wouldn't stop the creatures pouring through. If the Hammers couldn't hold them off it wouldn't matter whether the Trickster could merge the Maw with the City or not. The way through was already there.

"Come calls your death now," the trickster said. His rotted teeth glinted in a smile that stretched too wide. "Your part is done."

_Even if you survive, so what? Once you leave this place the Hammers will find you and they will kill you, no matter what Karras says. None of this is your problem._

Except it was. Without him the Eye would still be lost in the Hammerite cathedral. None of this would have happened.

_The Keepers..._

The Keepers had nothing to do with this. He had chosen to leave them, just as he had chosen to play errand boy to Constantine. This was his fault. He had to stay.

_You don't *have* to do anything._

He would stay. He wouldn't like it, but he'd stay.

_You sentimental idiot._

It was too late to run anyway. He turned away from the eye just as it exploded into flames.

Just before the shrapnel of the eye struck his head he thought, _If I survive this, I am done with heroics._


	3. Delirium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Escape!

"Since you left us you've been a stone rolling downhill."

Wants to say, screw you. Wants to say, not my problem. Wants to say, please, please don't let go. Can feel the words but can't bring them to mind. Like seeing a glyph on paper, remembering the feel of tracing it with fingers, but the meaning is gone.

"Now you must aim this remarkable momentum."

There is no momentum. Still with the weight of the branches-brambles-creeping vines on him. His eye, the one they left him with, meets Artemus' gaze. There is no momentum here.

A hand touches his face. Don't let go. Don't let go. Tries to raise his hand to that hand, hold it there. Like moving through mud.

"It... it's past time for the balance to shift."

The essence of balance is detachment. Don't let go.

"Leave him, Artemus. It's up to him now."

Third keeper. Fond or spiteful... spiteful or fond?

"He's delirious. He'll never make it through the mansion."

Doesn't know which he is. Fond--of his freedom, of his ability to act. Spiteful--bitter, cynical, going alone. One or the other, or maybe both. Maybe it doesn't matter. Has lost his balance regardless.

"Whether he can or can't is irrelevant. We have already interfered too much."

The hand lifts from his face, cold air between him and a gentle touch. No, no no no, don't let go. Reaches for the hand but it hurts and his hand seems to fade through Artemus' like a ghost.

"Artemus. We have to leave _now_."

But the hand touches his face again (don't let go). Cradles his cheek (don't let go). The pad of the thumb brushes beneath his good eye, wipes away might-be tears or might-be blood. Builder... don't let go.

"You know we must leave him. You know that."

Not sure... not sure where he is. Constantine? Whose hand on his face? The mansion, but it's all backwards. Don't let go, or he'll fall forever. Don't let go. Don't let go.

The hand slides from his face--no, please, don't let go. Footsteps. Growing softer and softer. Don't. Don't let go. Where are they going? Tries to beg them but the words don't form, only the need, please, please don't let go.

A door closes. A lock clicks.

Don't let go.

Alone. Like he always wanted.

Don't let go.

Tries to stand. His body barely responds. Movements are slow, too slow, like a nightmare. Collapses, on his knees, before the vines-brambles-branches. Don't let go. Don't let go.

Bastards, he wants to scream after them. The words don't come but the hate is there, the dizzying, agonizing hatred. No, please, please don't let go. He'll never forgive them.

Don't let go.


	4. Fever (Alt. No. 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: The Lost City

He crawled into the first building he saw and collapsed in the corner, wishing for the cold stone of the Bonehoard. Instead it was stone warmed by lava.

Artemus would have told him to sweat it out. That was the Keepers' method to dealing with fevers. They weren't supposed to be coddled but he remembered one night, an aching body, a hand on his shoulder.

He tried to imagine a parallel scenario, Constantine crouched in the darkness, a comforting hand on the shoulder of a protege that might not reach the end of the week. The idea of that eccentric man with all his wealth concerned over a replaceable thief brought a laugh to his throat, a hoarse chuckle that turned to pained gasps and a quiet sob he tried his damnedest to muffle.

He should have tried to haul himself back out of the ruins, but he knew that fire elemental was still out there patrolling. He wouldn't be able to slip by it a second time. He knew that. So instead he curled against the back wall and slowly stripped away the gear from his sweaty skin. The leather bracers, the pocketed cloak, the quivers full of crystals. These he pushed away. The only thing he kept was the sword. If the fever didn't break... if the elemental found him...

Well, he was stubborn enough to choose to go out on his own terms.

Even here the blade felt cool in his hands. He pulled the hilt to his forehead--dizzying when combined with the fever, but it wasn't as if he was going anywhere. Whatever it took to bring the fever down. Whatever he needed to do. Whatever he _could_ do, which admittedly wasn't much.

A healing potion might help, he thought. The feel of the cloak under him was agonizing. It always happened with a fever--he always wound up so hypersensitive that even the touch of air on his skin was painful--and healing potions usually calmed the pain. He felt at his pockets, just a tiny bit hopeful, but no. He'd used the last one getting away from that burrick hours ago. Some luck, getting into the lost city unscathed only to be taken down by a fever he'd brought from the outside world.

The heat would have been unbearable if he'd been well, but right now, exhausted and shivering despite the fever, it was almost a relief. It almost fooled him into thinking that he was safe--warm and safe, two things he didn't usually experience. The longer he lay there the less he wanted to move. The effort it took to move was just so much, and if he could sleep through the worst of the fever...

_You must drink something._

He raised his eyes to look at Artemus and found nothing, nothing but the stone wall and the glow of lava from beyond the door. He was alone. Of course he was alone.

_A fever won't kill you, Garrett. Dehydration will._

Shut up, he thought, burrowing deeper into his cloak. If he'd wanted to be lectured by Keepers he would never have left. There was a reason he was alone. He'd chosen this. He'd wanted this. He'd...

A gentle hand on his shoulder.

From a half-doze he started awake, reached for the wrist of the man who'd caught his all those years ago. The sword slipped from his hands and slid down the sharply-angled stone floor to the wall. No one was there. It was a dream. A dream or a memory, or a hallucination.

Fine, he thought. With oversensitive hands he felt around for his quiver. Still had a few water arrows. He pulled the crystal from an arrow with a _snap_ of broken wood and raised it to his lips.

_There, that's better._

The water barely seemed to be there. He swallowed it and instantly his mouth was as dry as before--more so, for having tasted the water. One shaking hand reached out to the quiver and counted one, two, three more water arrows. That couldn't possibly be enough. He would run out long before he recovered enough to slip back out the way he came.

_Be still. To fight the current will only harm your chances._

He was through listening to Keepers and their cryptic warnings. He held the water crystal in his mouth, still nursing what little remained, and let himself drift to sleep.


	5. Broken Voice (Alt. No. 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Metal Age  
Mission: Trail of Blood

The thief came to her. She smiled when she saw him making his way to the body of her fallen devotee. Perhaps he did have some sense after all.

"Garrett," she said, unfurling herself from the vines and branches. He looked at her with those cold eyes and said nothing. The practiced look of emotionlessness on his face made her laugh. "Garrett, who is it you wish to fight? Me, or my thistleaids, or the sycamore?"

He cast a deliberate gaze at the pagan's body before turning back to her.

"I am not the enemy, Garrett. Nor is anyone here. You know very well who is looking to destroy you."

She waited for him to admit it. The Mechanists were his enemy as much as they were hers. Even looking through his cold metal eye that much must have been obvious.

Still he said nothing.

The fury that had burned in her heart since the death of the trickster flared. Did he think this was a game? Did he think he could walk into her realm and deny the threat to them both when it would have been so easy to break him? She reached out with the branches around her--he raised his sword, but it took nothing more than a flick of the wrist to disarm him--and wrapped her strength around him, raising him from the ground as she had so long ago. "I could destroy you, pathetic manfool. You understand nothing of duty. You understand nothing of suffering!" His eyes were wide, just as they had been the day she'd taken one from him. He grunted as a small sprout of a branch brushed up and down his throat. "In one moment I could..."

His eyes weren't on her, she realized suddenly. He wasn't fighting the vines that held his head back. His gaze swept somewhere above her.

She turned to look up. There was nothing, only the wooded expanse of the Maw.

That moment of pause brought her back to herself, despite the anger. She let him go. He fell to his knees in the moss.

"The past is past," she said, holding aside memories--flames, burning magic, collapse--of the trickster's death. "Now we have an enemy in common, and you are stronger with us than without."

The thief's jaw moved as if to swallow. Instead he grimaced in pain.

There would be time later, when the Mechanist threat was past. When Karras was gone she would go to the thief and she would tear out his throat for what he had done. "Sometimes enemies must join forces to overcome a more terrible foe. Tell me, Garrett, yes or no. Are we agreed to work together against the Mechanists?"

"I..." Garrett whispered. His voice broke in his throat.

"I put vengeance aside. The earth keeps my promise for me." She broke the flesh on her forearm and watch her life drip into the ground. "You have my oath on it. I am cursed if I break the covenant. Now your answer."

"I..." One hand trembled at his throat. "Agree.. that... ah..."

She seized his hand in hers and opened the vein so that his blood mixed with hers.

"Good," she whispered. The earth kept his promise as well.

His other hand now came to his throat, and in curiosity she pinned this one as well and sent the little sprout of a branch to lift his chin.

"Vik..." he said, and writhed in pain as the syllable fell from his mouth. "T... toria..."

She lifted his chin and the hood fell back from his face, and for the first time she noticed the massive bruise rising on his throat. She stroked it gently, and he gave a broken sob.

"You ran afoul of the treebeasts, didn't you, manfool? Luck was with us both that they didn't simply snap your neck and be done with it."

"Don't," he rasped, but what could he do? She could picture it easily: the thief trying to hide in the shadow of the beast, it taking him by the throat so forcefully that the tiny bone below his jaw fractured at the touch.

"Poor thief," she said. So fragile. So... weak. He didn't even struggle as she tilted his head at one angle and then another. "You really have learned nothing."


	6. Dragged Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Lord Bafford's Manor

Deep thrumming headache starts again when he enters the library. Not again. Not here.  
  
Feels as if something inside his skull is vibrating intensely. Why couldn't this have happened later, after he's out, or while he was still in the basement, alone, where nobody ever goes?  
  
Instead he's here, in this needlessly open library. Not even a table to creep under. The shelves are set against the wall, no getting behind them. A fire burns in the grate--some one will probably be back soon.  
  
It's all he can do to drag himself into the back between two shelves. Needs to lie down. There isn't room. Wedges himself in and covers his head with his arms. Feels like something huge trying to beat its way out of his skull. Hopes he doesn't throw up.  
  
Maybe if he backtracks. Through the servants' quarters. There was a window near the stairs, he could slip through there to the garden...  
  
His lips are trembling. Presses them together. Okay. Won't make it out of this place, not in this shape. Maybe in the way going forward... empty bed... dark room... place to rest... until...  
  
Slipping under. Regretfully pulls back from the edge. Can't. Not here.  
  
Focused on keeping some bit of equilibrium when they enter. Fantastic.  
  
Two voices. One low and authoritative, one soft and acquiescing. Presses himself as tight as he can against the wall. Trying to stay present. Can imagine that bed. Soft and clean--rich bastards always did have...  
  
No, he can feel his body going limp. Tries to focus on the voices. They're coming nearer. Not sure what they are saying. The deeper voice sounds angry, all sharp edges. Maybe if they argue they won't stay...  
  
Then they appear, coming toward the fireplace. Near enough to touch. He holds his breath and closes his eyes.  
  
"I don't care what the law says," the deeper voice is saying. "I'm not shutting it down, so any threat they make is toothless." The softer voice speaks and he feels a shiver roll over his body. A lot of good the fire has done him...  
  
"I don't care what you tell them. Just get it done, and get it done soon. If they approach me at the opera house again you'll find yourself back on the streets."  
  
Focus. Focus.  
  
"Yes, Lord Bafford."  
  
Bafford? He nearly raises his aching head to see but stops himself in time. Of course the rich bastard wasn't really out of town. If--when he got out of here he would go back and whack Cutty upside the head with the damn scepter.

"Bring me a glass of something. Rum. What do we have that's strong?"

"Yes, Lord Bafford."

"And tell the cook to send something up. Tell him it had better be fresh."

Raises his eyes enough to see the blurred shape of the servant bowing out. Bafford stands at the table before the fire, bent over some gigantic tome. Seems to be working intently. If he keeps it up for a few more minutes he'll slip around the long way and double back to the servants' quarters. At least it's dark. At least the servants aren't very observant. At least...

Pulls back again. Has to stop doing this.

The moments tick by and Bafford keeps reading. He wants to close his eyes against the firelight. Get his head cleared. His limbs feel weak. Has to go. Now.

Eases himself from the space between shelves. Staying in a crouch makes him shaky. Not sure if he can keep his footing. Has to crawl. There will be time to feel humiliated by this later. Creeps around the table behind Bafford...

...and a tray falls to the floor. The wine glass atop it shatters, sends glass fragments everywhere. When he looks up the servant is there in the doorway, staring at him, mouth open to scream.

Bafford can't see him from here, he's sure of it. Puts a finger to his lips, desperate to hush the servant, and all he is offered in return is a scream.

He tries to run. Staggers upright, shoves past the servant, runs down the hall and ignores the sound of his own footsteps. The garden. He can lose them in the garden. He turns toward the balcony that faces into the garden, and something strikes him hard enough in the middle that it drags him down.

Arms around him. Armor. A guard. No. He's so close to the garden, he can almost touch the door...

Hands on him now. Pulling at him, dragging him back from the balcony. No, no, he's so close. He grabs at whatever might hold him--walls, the tiles on the floor, anything. But there's too many of them. Fifteen guards, Cutty said. Counts at least six, grabbing at him, pulling. He tries to kick them off but the weight they put on his legs slows him. He tries to look but the headache is so strong now, splitting his head, and he can't keep his eyes open for long.

Even as he's fighting he hears the deeper voice--Bafford--ask, "What is going on?"

"A thief, my lord," someone says.

"A thief! And how, praytell, did a thief breach the manor?"

Someone's knee connects hard with his temple, jarring his head so badly he has to strangle a cry in his throat. Someone grabs him by the hood, yanks it back. Someone else takes a handful of his hair and pulls his head back so that his face and throat are exposed.

"What, no answer? I should have fired the lot of you. Some one call for the Hammers. Get it out of my sight."

Hammers--it's all he makes out. Not the guard. The Hammers. Tries to claw his way free but they grab his hands and something is forced to his face, a towel, soaked through with something that smells like rum and speckled with broken glass. Doesn't know what they're doing, thrashes his head to loosen their grip, but instead the towel tightens around his face, over his nose and mouth, and he understands, or thinks he understands--if he's breathing in the alcohol it will slow him down, not chloroform but near enough...

They're pulling him back. They're pulling him back into the manor. The throbbing in his head is tearing apart his will to fight. He wrests one arm free and reaches, and reaches, and then something heavy strikes his skull and he sees nothing.


	7. Isolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Metal Age  
Mission: Running Interference
> 
> inspired by [this post here](https://aro-soulmate-project.tumblr.com/post/176761330514/psa-saying-soulmates-can-be-platonic-too-means). As it turns out, I've been dramatically misunderstanding the idea of soulmates for years. Not only am I a NervousAsexual, I am also a ConfusedAromantic.

"Garrett?" Basso asked. "Do you believe in soulmates?"

What a question to ask now, with the way already clear and the lights extinguished.

"Tell me honestly."

"No," he said. He turned the bird whistle over and over in his hands, watching the moonlight glint off it.

"You don't believe in soul mates? Or you're not going to tell me?"

"Both."

"I do. I believe somewhere out there is somebody who completes you. The other half of your heart." When Garrett scoffed he turned to him sharply. "You don't, huh?"

Garrett started toward the side door, hoping Basso would follow. "You're an entire person on your own."

"That's not really what i meant. Obviously you're born whole, but a soulmate... I don't know. Makes you better than what you are." He frowned when Garrett shushed him, but allowed the thief to take him by the wrist and guide him through the dark beyond the guard station. "So you don't have to be alone." They made a detour into the kitchen. Garrett pointed out the next guard post, still illuminated with electric lighting. "You have to find somebody to love, so why should it be someone who completes you?"

Garrett's jaw tightened--he didn't want to talk about this--but he said nothing.

"Jenivere's mine, I think. As long as I'm with her, I'll never be alone in this world." Another twenty paces around behind the guard post and then a turn down the darkened hall. "Jenny?" He hurried to her door. "Jenny?"

"Basso!"

"Keep it down," Garrett snapped, glancing back toward the guard post.

"I'll have you out in a second, my love." Basso knelt beside the door and pulled out his lockpicks. "Just a moment longer."

"We'll have to be quick," Jenivere called through the door. "It's getting late--Lady Rumford will be back soon."

"Almost... there." The lock clicked and the door swung open, and Basso and Jenivere plunged into each other's arms. They held each other even as Garrett herded them back through the mansion. They held each other as if they'd never let go. Even when Garrett pushed them toward the gate, they held on.

"Thank you, Garrett," Basso said. "I owe you."

"That you do."

For a moment Basso stood looking at him, and then he took Garrett's hand and squeezed it.

"I hope you have this one day," he whispered. "I hope you find your other half."

"Get out of here, boxman."

As the two disappeared into the night Garrett felt, for just a moment, a twinge of sadness. Basso was wrong. There was no other half. There was only a world full of individuals trying to making a connection with each other, and they were so focused on finding their soulmate that they couldn't enjoy any other kind of connection.

It was Basso's loss; Garrett could always find another safecracker. It just seemed a shame to watch the closest thing he'd had to a friend vanish in the darkness.


	8. Stab Wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Down in the Bonehoard

He saw it coming. The sword glinting as it emerged from the darkness, the deep red and black of the haunt materializing behind it. He reached for his own sword but even as he drew it the haunt was there in front of him, and he came to a dead stop, eyes not six inches from the haunt's empty sockets.

For a moment he didn't understand. He looked at the haunt and it looked at him, and when he looked down his own sword clattered to the stone.

The Bonehoard was silent. The haunt stood unmoving, not even whispering. The only sound was the blood rushing in his ears. All he could see was the battered Hammerite sword angled up through his belly and into his ribs. It was too solid. An immovable object in the softest part of him.

The haunt looked at him calmly, and then it stepped back into the darkness, withdrawing the sword as it went.

Garrett fell to his knees as it emerged. Shaking hands pressed against the wound, trying to hold in the blood and the gore; the pain hadn't struck him yet. A healing potion. He needed a healing potion.

One hand reached for his pack and his body shook with a cough that brought blood up his throat. The sword had punctured his lung. In a few minutes he would drown in his own blood with the Mystic's Heart still untouched in its chest.

The pain hit him then, full force, and he went down, biting back a moan as he curled around the wound. Desperately he grabbed at the pack, cold-numbed fingers fumbling with the pouches. He tried to pull in more air and instead got more blood.

The blood bubbled up in his throat. He could hear distant groans, shuffling footsteps, but he also heard the clink of glass on glass. Three healing potions he'd brought with him. One he'd used in the burrick den and one after the fall from the upper level when the energy bolt knocked him from the pillars. That left one. His fingers closed around the narrow flask. Just the one.

It took all his willpower to hold onto the bottle with both hands shaking from the shock. He pulled out the stopper with his teeth and, praying it wasn't already too late, tipped the liquid down his throat.

Another cough wracked his body and he curled tighter, struggling to hold back the blood long enough for the potion to take effect. As long as he could he breathed through his nose, but the blood filling his lungs was too much and his jaw went slack. The blood and the potion dribbled down the side of his face. With the last of his consciousness he took the blue vial from his pack. It was the only thing he could think to do: wrench the cap from the vial and pour the holy water onto the wound.

It burned, jerking him back, forcing his muscles to contract, and his body seized as the tomb went black.

On the cold, blood-stained floor of the tomb he came back to himself. In one hand he still held the vial; the other hand clutched at the half-healed wound and held him together.

With the little strength coming back to him he dragged himself out of the puddle of blood and viscera, back to where the blue chest still stood untouched. With shaking hands he pushed back the lid, and there, inside, was the Mystic's Heart.

Garrett let his head rest against the edge of the chest and looked back where the haunt had once stood. "Pretty rude. You know you can't take it with you." Taking another blue vial from his collection he chuckled to himself. "But I can."


	9. Shackled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Undercover

Here is something Garrett will never admit: the Hammer Inquisitor hurt him bad. He'll never tell Constantine, and certainly not Viktoria. He'll try to forget it himself, but the scars will make that impossible. He'll look at his wrists and think that he should have just given up, taken it as a sign, left well enough alone before the worse pain that was coming.

But now, in this moment, only the one wrist cuffed to the wall of the Inquisitor's torture chamber, it seems like this is an irritating but manageable bump in the road. It is easy enough to stand there, holding the rusted chain of the shackle.

"It's hardly your fault that Markander was your mentor," the Inquisitor says to him. His voice is calm and friendly. "But without fail the novices he sends to me are willful and obstinate. I find that a few hours in chains more than cools them off. And why not get it over with early?"

This sounds like a terrible way to gain the loyalty of a novice, but Garrett says nothing. It's what a novice would do, and as long as he keeps his cover he will be able to find his way to the Talisman of Air.

His wrist is already aching.

The Inquisitor steps close, too close, so near that Garrett can smell his hot, putrid breath. He takes Garrett's hand in his. He runs his hands over Garrett's, smoothing his fingers across the rough knuckles, and looks deep into his eyes with a smile gently lighting his face.

"But you seem a nice lad," he whispers. "I know you will catch on quickly." He raises Garrett's hand until it is partially extended over his head. "Hold there. There's a good boy."

The shackle that closes around this wrist is tighter than the other, sharper on the edges where it bites into his flesh. Garrett sets his jaw against the pained protest that rises in him. His eyes catch the Inquisitor's.

"You're a bit older than our usual novices," he says. "I always appreciate that. Younger novices can be so energetic and enthusiastic, but the ones your age tend to understand the gravity of what's happening to them a little faster."

An icy spike of fear runs through Garrett. Before he can move the Inquisitor sweeps his feet out from under him.

All of his body weight suddenly comes down on his wrist in the tighter cuff and he gasps, the sharp, sudden pain freezing him in place--instinct, drilled into him by Keepers. There is a moment of panic as he hangs from his wrist.

"There, see?" the Inquisitor says soothingly. His arm comes up around Garrett's waist, pulling his hips out so that it's that much more difficult to regain his balance. "That isn't so difficult, is it? You don't have to do a thing."

Even now there is the possibility of escape. It would be difficult--he keeps his lockpicks close to his chest and the Inquisitor is watching--but not impossible. But in his mind Garrett is thinking of the amount of money Constantine has promised to pay for the Eye. For that amount he can hold out.

At least, this is what he thinks.

The Inquisitor steps back and Garrett hurriedly gets his feet under him, easing the pressure off his wrist. Something warm and wet runs down his inner arm--the skin is broken where his wrist meets his hand. Garrett is shaking, but he says nothing. A novice is supposed to be silent.

Now the Inquisitor hums to himself, crossing the room to a corner Garrett can't see around. When he reappears he is carrying a chain just slightly smaller than the ones holding Garrett to the wall. He smiles at Garrett and loops the chain around his neck; unconsciously Garrett swallows, and the Inquisitor traces the movement of his adam's apple with the tips of his fingers. Gooseflesh rises where his fingers stroke.

"What a good boy," the Inquisitor whispers. His fingers tighten for the briefest of moments before he lets go. Then he takes hold of the chain and yanks.


	10. Unconscious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Post-Into the Maw of Chaos
> 
> The bad-end version of [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18023297).

He sleeps.

Beyond the borders of his exhaustion lie the deep, bone-rending ache of the spider bite on his arm, the burns of the ice fields, the claustrophobic anxiety of the webs constricting his movement, but he can't respond to anything. He only sleeps in the trickster's arms.

He does not wake. The venom in him is still too strong. He sleeps, and the trickster touches him in ways he's never been touched.

He has never.

He does not respond in the way the trickster expects. The venom is crushing even his reflex response. Sedated or not he has never been especially drawn to sexuality. Once he was curious enough to try. A sleepless night, spent pacing around his small room, and increasing desperation drove him to it. There had been whispers and giggles during the training the keepers gave him, as he got older, that release helped to relax, to ease you to sleep. So he gave it a try, covered himself in a stolen blanket and fumbled with himself in the dark. At first it was a bit of a comfort--his mind was blank, he was lying down--but as the minutes went by and no release came he started to grow more and more desperate. He wound himself up more and more and finally he was reduced to shuddering beneath the blanket, still touching himself but unwilling to move. That was the only attempt he made.

And now the trickster makes an attempt of his own. He runs his long lying tongue over the the thief's forehead, thrilling at the salty taste of sweat and the rough feel of the ice-burned flesh, puts pressure on places the thief keeps hidden.

The thief only sleeps as if dead, but it matters little to the trickster. It will not be the first time he has had his way with someone unconscious.

As he stirs his arm throbs. His head aches. He can't breathe. He is choking. He can only barely move.

He opens his good eye just enough to see the the trickster moving about. He is lying on a patch of moss, his wrists still bound in webs, more webbing filling his mouth. His entire body is sore and he can't bring himself to move.

He tries. He wills his limbs to move, his head to turn, anything at all. But he's so tired. He can't.

He can only lie on his side and watch through blurred vision as the trickster opens the portal to the other world. When it is done the trickster looks at him and he falls hard into unconsciousness.

The trickster enjoys the weakness of the thief. He has always tried to exude an air of competency and talent, and it lends an amusing irony to the way he now lies frail and broken, his head tipped too far back, his pale fragile throat exposed. How easy it would be to crush his airway and watch him panic.

This the trickster does not do. Instead he nips at the thief's neck, biting a bruise deep into his flesh. He presses into the space between the thief's hipbones, grinding in as the thief hovers just below the surface of consciousness. He has been waiting a long time for this.

Briefly the thief is aware of a heavy weight crushing him down the full length of his body. Still breathing is difficult. There is pain, between...

The trickster ruts against him and the pain accelerates his growing consciousness. His voice is distant, barely recognizable, as it cries out. He is still muffled with webbing.

Then it is a bugbeast lying over him, its arms hooked over his shoulders and he can smell the poison in the air. His head falls back and he sees the trickster watching, goat-like features twisted into a smirk.

His flesh burns where the bugbeast touches him, and it spews forth swarms of insects that cut into him. This is how he will die. This... 

Another spider, creeping over his bare skin. It moves slowly, and it draws out the insects that burrow into his flesh. He is tense--the venom that remains?--but the spider does not stop.

He cries out when the trickster enters, flesh tearing again and blood soaking the moss beneath him. He is so dehydrated he barely makes a sound. He still doesn't respond in the way the trickster wants. With a roar the trickster surges forward again, one heavy paw striking the thief's temple.

The apemen--there are two, three, more--speak when they are with him.

"Hush, hush, tricksie thiefsie thief," one whispers in his ear when he cries. This one is strangely gentle. When he is starving, unsure of how long he has been in the trickster's world, it brings plums, so ripe as to be half-rotten, and squeezes the juice down his throat.

In time he is nothing, wasted away to nothing, and the bug beast returns. By now he is no more than the moss beneath him, slick with sweat and blood and dirt, only a piece of the world he cannot leave.

"Hush," the apeman whispers.

Another spider binds his wounds. He is beyond worry at this point. The soft tickle of its legs crawling across him isn't enough to trigger a reaction.

An unfamiliar beast, blurred beyond his tired vision. Ears folded sharply back against a long narrow head, covered in places with thick fur but bare skin against his in more places. Teeth roll lightly across his throat. A single snap of the jaws could sever his windpipe, leave him drowning in his own blood. If he had the strength he'd offer it. He doesn't fear death.

"Tricksie thiefsie manfool. Bringsie you plumsies!"

Does not open his mouth. Can't open his mouth. Even as the hunger inside him threatens to tear its way out.

Ape beast--apeman?--cradles his head and pries open his mouth. Forces the half-rotted fruit inside.

Vines. Vines? She is near.

Not even the drugged fruit is enough to still his fear of her. On trembling limbs pulls himself to his stomach--aching, aching against the moss--vomits a too-sweet smelling mass, eyes roaming the summoning ground--keepers, hammers, the too-gentle apebeast, the trickster if he must, but please, anyone but her--and drags himself forward. His arm, the one the spider sank its fangs into, barely able to drag it along with him. It's all but dead. Falls, can't get up, and her vines encircle his wrists and raise him from the ground.

The trickster holds him. Like a sleeping child. Like a bride crossing the threshold. Lifts his head, gently, gently, gently. Someone holds a water crystal to his lips. He drinks without being aware of it. His body wants desperately to live, no matter what his wish may be.

His arm is chilled. The one bitten by the spider is cool compared to the fever raging in his body. An elemental is brought, herded by a pair of apemen, and it hovers beside the trickster. The thief turns his face to the warmth without waking, but withdraws deeper into his body.

The trickster leaves the thief lying on the ground, the moss around him singed by the elemental, one of the apemen massaging his arm. He is dead to the world.


	11. Stitches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Strange Bedfellows

Loathe as the order was to request help from a common thief, it proved to be as wise a decision as could be made. Despite the pessimistic assumptions the thief returned, moving slowly but carrying with him the high priest.

Karras could not have been more pleased. His authority was hardly unimpeachable. So many had been killed during the flight from the temple, and so many more separated from the others, that it was impossible to tell for certain that a higher ranked member of the order did not live. To stay in these tunnels while the Trickster's creatures still lurked was to court danger, and yet by staying they had allowed the deliverance of the high priest from his captors.

The thief laid the high priest at the foot of the Hammer window, and as the lesser clergy stirred restlessly he knelt beside the priest as if to pray. He did not pray. He only breathed, harsh, pained breaths that seemed to rattle his entire body.

Because no others did so, Karras approached. He made to lay his hand on the thief's shoulder in congratulations, but the thief pulled roughly away.

"Our thanks to thee, child of the Builder." Karras took no offense. "Our order has made preparations to leave this place. If thou has no further business in the temple, a place is reserved for thee."

He half-expected refusal, but the thief clutched his knees, coughed a coarse, unmoving cough, and nodded wearily.

"Then let us make haste, my brothers," Karras said to the others. He stood beside the thief as they lifted the high priest so gently in their arms and made way to the raft. In less than a quarter hour they would be away from this place.

"Walk with me," Karras said to the thief.

The thief hesitated for a moment, but for what purpose had he come if not to seek the Hammers? He ignored the hand Karras offered and braced himself against the wall to stand.

A bargain was struck. An eye for an eye, so to speak. In exchange for his help in destroying the Trickster, Karras would build for the thief a mechanical eye, carefully fitted and replaced.

Of course, in his condition the thief would have, or should have, accepted any deal offered. In the safehouse, touched by the light of the lantern and far from the shadows that had protected him, the thief could not hide his wounds. Most obvious of course was the empty socket where his eye had once been, but he walked with a limp--Karras suspected a fracture to his right leg--and his skin was scratched and torn as if by brambles. A cut, made by a sword, Karras believed, had opened where the thief's neck met his shoulder. A hair's breadth to one side and it would have sliced the artery there, and then no bargain Karras could construct would have been enough to put the thief together again. As it stood the slice was held together by rough looping stitches. No doubt the thief himself had sewn his flesh closed.

The thief spoke quietly of what he knew--undoubtedly not all of what he knew, but enough--as he lay on the safehouse table, an initiate washing his wounds. He described the eye that would help the Trickster open his portal and the Hammers set to work building an identical eye, trapped so to kill him.

Eventually the thief lapsed into silence. Karras himself sat at the head of the table and restitched the wound on the thief's neck. There was a tensity in his throat. He was clearly in pain.

"I would offer thou alcohol, would our statutes allowed it," Karras told him.

"I don't need your sympathy."

At that Karras laughed. Only a heretic like the thief would speak so to the people helping him. "Very well."

The thief's hands clenched in fists at his sides. As Karras' needle rose and fell in his neck he gritted his teeth and stared with his one good eye into the distance. Karras paused, taking a moment to wipe away the blood still rising up beneath the stitches, and the thief groaned softly.

"A few minutes more, thief."

"Just get it over with." The thief was trembling and failing to hide it.

With slow, careful stitches Karras closed the wound and washed it one last time before pressing a bandage to the damp pale skin. The thief hissed in pain, half rising up. Karras pressed him easily down onto his back.

As he secured the bandage his patient's breathing grew ragged again, his face expressionless but strained. "If thou will remain a little longer I will mix a compress to help with thy limp."

"I don't have time for this," the thief muttered wearily. He did not move to get up.

"And yet there is time enough to drag a broken leg through the realm of the trickster?"

Still the thief did not move. Pretending this to be consent, Karras left him and gathered his ingredients elsewhere. He fully expected the thief to be gone when he returned.

And yet when he did return, arms laden with alchemical ingredients, the thief still lay on the table. His breathing came deep and slow--he slept.

A pang of sympathy resonated with Karras. How badly the thief must have needed rest, if he would sleep while surrounded by men who sought his imprisonment. Karras quickly shrugged the sympathy away.

He felt up and down the thief's leg in search of the fracture and found it, just above the ankle. Still the thief slept. Even as Karras mixed the foul-smelling compound, even as he slathered the ankle and bound it tightly, the thief slept.

The time was as good as any. Karras moved to the thief's head and carefully turned it one way and then the other. No response came from the thief, as he'd hoped. He drew closer the bowl of water he'd used to clean the wound in the thief's throat and tilted his head back to get at the eyelid hanging loose and bruised.

As he began to wash the eye socket the thief jolted awake. Karras pressed him down. "Be still."

"What are you doing?" the thief demanded.

Karras did not respond. A great deal of his strength had to be poured into holding the thief down.

"Get your hands off me!"

"The order of the Hammer will keep its end of our bargain, but a mechanical eye requires a clean socket, and thou has done a poor job maintaining one."

For a moment the thief hesitated, though he still trembled and his hands grasped at Karras. Karras did not let up, and he sank back down.

"May I continue?"

The thief swallowed. He nodded slightly.

"There will be pain but it will be a small price to pay in the end." Karras wiped away the worst of the gore hidden by the thief's eyelid. Beneath him the thief was tense. His fingers scratched at the table top, stiff as talons and white with fear. "Don't move."

The thief chewed his lip. Plainly it took everything in him to keep from turning away.

He skimmed the cloth over the tender flesh and the thief's breathing grew quicker, nearer to panic. Blood welled again--an open wound inside, not yet cauterized. Karras reached again for his needle.

"Oh," the thief said, seemingly to himself. His voice shook. The muscles in his neck strained.

"Thou will be glad this was done in the end." Karras held open the unanchored lid and wiped again at the blood. There, in the flesh along the side of the eye socket. Not deep enough for stitches. He pressed gauze into the wound; It would heal on its own. "There. I will ask my brothers to bring the stone eye here. Rest if thou wishes."

"I'll pass." The thief sat up, wincing as he did so. His hand came up as if to touch the bandage on his throat, but instead hovered just beyond. He didn't stand.

"Very well."

Karras left him there. There was no doubt in his mind that the thief would sleep again. Anyone could see how much the day's struggle had exhausted him. In the meantime, there was the eye to see to.


	12. "Don't Move"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Undercover

"Don't move."

He doesn't. There's no use in struggling; he lost feeling in his left hand hours ago.

"Good boy. Don't move."

The Inquisitor's hand touches his cheek and he can't help it, he flinches away. Just a small wince. He hopes the Inquisitor doesn't notice.

"I said don't move!"

_Idiot_, he thinks. _Stupid._

His feet are swept out from under him again and all his weight comes down on his wrist. He chokes back a pained grunt. By now his wrist might be--must be--dislocated, but he doesn't dare look up to see. He is shaking and has been for a while.

The Inquisitor lets him hang for a few moments before letting him regain his feet. Garrett has been playing this cat-and-mouse game with him for the better part of the six hours he's been chained to the wall, and it takes some time for him to stand again. His face is pale beside the brown-red of his blood-stained sleeve. Between the blood loss and the stress he's so dehydrated he can hardly stand. He is too focused on keeping control of his breathing to notice the Inquisitor reaching up and cupping his cheek.

"There, you see? That wasn't so bad." He is close, so close, too close, and Garrett can feel his breath on his ear. His free hand strays too low. Garrett swallows--difficult to do beneath the weight of the chain still wrapped tightly around his neck. "You're already head and shoulders above most of Markander's novices."

_Get through this,_ Garrett thinks. _Get through this, get the talisman, get out._

The hand is on his hip now. The thumb strokes his hipbone through the fabric of the novice's robes.

"Don't move," the Inquisitor says, his voice cheerful, almost teasing. He tilts his head to one side and moves in. His nose brushes Garrett's.

He closes his eyes; it will be easier if he can't see. But that's more movement than the Inquisitor wants, and he takes hold of the chain around Garrett's neck and puts his weight onto it. He doesn't take his hand from Garrett's waist.

The chain cuts into his windpipe, makes him feel the pulse pounding in his neck, and the added weight only pulls him down more on the shackle above his head. He remembers drowning--a long time ago, Keeper training, something went wrong that he can't remember--but this isn't the same. He can stop this.

With all the energy he can summon he raises his head enough to look into the Inquisitor's eyes. The look on the Inquisitor's face changes--anger or fear, hard to tell which, to something resembling wonder.

"There's those pretty eyes," he whispers.

He lets up on the chain and it loosens just a little, just enough for Garrett to drag in an agonizing breath. His eyelids flutter as the oxygen hits his system. He doesn't break eye contact with the Inquisitor.

This is the moment Garrett changes his mind, the moment just getting through this so that he can find the talisman stops being enough. Nothing Constantine can pay him is worth this.


	13. Adrenaline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Post-Into the Maw of Chaos

Three days after the trickster died, Garrett finally ran out of adrenaline.

He hadn't left his apartment since getting back. Instead he spent his time pacing the length of the room, waiting for the inevitable end, shaking and eating whatever he could get his hands on. His anxiety and appetite both felt like they were spinning out of control.

He hadn't slept in almost three days. His back screamed to at least lie down, but still he walked--seven steps to the end of the room, seven steps back.

_You have to sleep._

He wasn't sure if it was his own voice he heard or Artemus'. In the end it didn't really matter; it was the truth. It felt like every inch of his body was screaming for rest. Too much. It was too much.

The apartment stayed dark as a tomb all hours of the day. He'd tried to step out once--his body was crying out for something sugary to eat, and he didn't keep that sort of thing on hand--and the sunlight slamming into his eyes brought him to his knees. It was easier to tell what was real and what wasn't with the lights down, anyway. If he looked at the burrick in the corner or the vines falling from the ceiling and they were bright as day, he knew they weren't real. The roaches that crawled out of the woodwork... some of those were real and some weren't.

_Even if you can't sleep, lie down and close your eyes. You need the rest._

But that was easier said than done. His legs ached (from the pacing, he would later conclude) and it felt wrong to be lying down. He needed to be ready. He never did decide why.

Twice the nausea got him and he vomited half-digested stale bread, still stained purple from the plums in the maw, out the window. The second time he thought he heard some one shout at him--the landlord, possibly--but what was he supposed to do about it now? The hunger immediately came crashing back and he forgot about the nausea as he looked for something, anything else to eat. He caught himself holding a moss arrow, wondering if the crystal would stave off the spasms in his stomach a little longer.

_Too much,_ his body cried. _Too much. Too much._

Too much, or not enough, he thought, stumbling over a loose floorboard. It was hard to remember.

The trickster kept coming back. Sometimes he spoke in the cultured voice of Constantine, and sometimes he used the same pidgin language as the Pagans. His voice joined the chorus telling him to sleep.

Three days found him still pacing, his stomach roiling, his own voice among those whispering in his head.

_Too much. Too much. Too much._

And finally, on the third day, the adrenaline that had been flooding his system ran out. There wasn't time to prepare. His body shut down before it even hit the floor.


	14. Tear-Stained

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: The Haunted Cathedral

The purse he found in the Market Street tunnels had a total of one hundred gold in it. That felt like a lot at the time, worth nearly drowning in the old quarter, but by the time he finally got home and fell into bed he could feel the shortness of breath coming on and he wished he'd just stuck above ground.

It wasn't the first time he'd nearly drowned, but the infection afterwards came on quicker than usual. He slept for the better part of six hours that morning, and by the time he woke up he was freezing and sweating simultaneously and couldn't catch his breath.

Pneumonia, he thought, pulling the blanket tight around his shoulders. Just his luck.

The coughing took him by the throat not long after. Over and over, until he felt the familiar reflex take over and he threw up. The smell was wretched and triggered the vomiting again until there was nothing left to come up.

He still hadn't gotten the serpentyle torc pawned. Still hadn't looked into where the talismans might be. Hadn't even gotten a drink of water yet. He dozed for a few more hours, curled on the edge of the bed in case the coughing got bad again.

It did.

Trying to stop did nothing. He could hold back a single cough, maybe two, but in the end there were always more. They stole what little air he could get into his lungs. The coughing was the only thing in his life when it happened. For that moment there were no Keepers, no Hammers, no Constantine or Viktoria. Everything came down to the feeling of drowning, the sharp ache in his back and ribs, the stabbing pain in his chest, the desperate gasping when a fit ended.

In the room beneath him somebody thumped on the ceiling. He ignored them.

Needed... needed water. The dehydration was only making things worse, but he didn't have it in him to go out for water. If he had a couple of coins he could pay one of the neighborhood kids to do it. He didn't. Everything he had was wrapped up in this chase for the Eye. Besides, he wasn't even sure he could get the attention of a neighborhood kid.

The coughing shook him until the tears ran from his eyes.

Only making it worse. He closed his eyes, buried his head against the pillow, struggled to find sleep. This time it refused to come.

He turned over in bed, hissing as his weight came down on the sore aching muscles of his back, and pawed through the bag he'd dropped as he came in. Still had a vial of holy water. Two water arrows. A flashbomb. If things got worse he could throw that out the window and see who came to investigate.

He snapped the crystal off the end of one of the water arrows and held it in his mouth. The water felt good--cool but not cold. Relaxed him a bit, stopped the coughing for a moment.

He slept.

When he finally woke, still shivering, still sore, but not coughing so badly, he found his pillow damp. Sweat, he thought. Maybe the fever had broken?

But when he touched his face it was his cheeks that were damp. Not sweat. Tears.

He didn't understand why, but there it was. He turned the pillow over and wiped his face with his sleeve.

As he dozed again his face was damp--the tears had never stopped.


	15. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Metal Age  
Mission: Shipping... and Receiving

For an amateur job like this there were way too many guards.

Garrett had nearly been spotted trying to get in through the skylights--who posted guards on the roof?--and he'd seen Hammers and some of Davidson's men making rounds on top of the usual guards. There was no end to them. He didn't dare blackjack anyone; where would he hide the body?

By the time he got to the music studio he was half-tempted to call it a night. He'd done what he set out to do. The new label was on the crate. He'd pocketed quite a bit of loot from the art gallery, not as much as he would have liked, maybe five hundred dollars in loot, but once he got payment from Manny for whatever was in Gilver's crate he might be able to make rent.

But the thought of all that spice out on the the boat was just too tempting.

He'd just take a break. Just for a moment.

He locked the door of the studio behind him and sank down on the chair in front of the recording equipment, rubbing idly at his eye. T.M. Blackheart was supposed to be a fairly popular musician, wasn't he? Maybe there were some unreleased recordings lying around somewhere. Those had to be worth a little money.

Or instruments, he thought, remembering the flute--or was it a piccolo? some kind of wind instrument, anyway--he'd picked up back at Lady Rumford's manor. He propped himself up on the recording equipment and squinted into the recording booth. Maybe. He'd look later, when he'd caught his breath.

It was as he was leaning back in the chair that he caught a glimpse beneath his hood.

Almost reluctantly he pulled the hood back and leaned in again, twisting and turning his head in what little light there was. The face looking back at him was pale and narrow, all except the flesh around his right eye. That was looking too swollen for his comfort.

Garrett tugged off one glove and touched the tips of his fingers to his face. Definitely warmer than usual. Probably an infection.

His head drooped on his chest as he removed the mechanical eye. No sign of pus, but that didn't mean too much. Inside the empty socket he could feel a pounding, throbbing pulse that he wasn't sure was his heartbeat. He ground the heel of his hand into the empty socket. Didn't stop the pain--obviously--but for a moment he was able to ignore the throbbing.

It had been over a year. Why did it still hurt?

He sank back into the chair, absently stroking the scars around his eye. They were pulled tight by the swelling, the jagged scar tissue refusing to budge. In his mind he could still see Viktoria's branches coming at him. They tore the eye from his face and on instinct he turned away, as if doing so now could change the past.

It didn't even change the memory. Even here in a place far away, where he could come and go as he pleased, he could feel her vines holding him back, pinning his arms to the wall, weighing down his head so that he couldn't even look away. It was every bit as visceral as it had been the day it happened. Sometimes he had to stop himself from crying out. Sometimes he had to stay crouched in dark corners for hours, hands pressed to his mouth, before he trusted himself to slip past a patrol.

It was over, he had to remind himself. It was done. The trickster was dead and gone. His wounds were healed. He had the scars to prove it.

No matter how fresh the pain, it was over.

_Don't,_ he warned himself. _There's no use in crying about it._

He didn't know why he bothered. The one thing Viktoria had left him in that eye was his tears.


	16. Pinned Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Metal Age  
Mission: First City Bank and Trust

"Knowest thou... out of place... I have found."

Why did everything the Mechanists create have Karras' voice? Garrett thought irritably. As if the man himself wasn't difficult enough to understand, the machines distorted the sound. It was like listening to craymen try to sing.

Usually he didn't have to listen too carefully to the machines, but the basements of the First City Bank and Trust were crawling with them. It worried him--did they expect him? Why weren't the mechs upstairs, watching the usual entrances? But they weren't. They were here in the basement with him, and he pressed himself as tight as he could into the corner between the door jam and the adjacent wall. He held a flash bomb clutched in his hand.

"Knowest thou... a brother of Karras... a malfunction... I have fou-found."

What did that even mean?

There wasn't time to wonder because the mechanical stomping and twisting was getting closer, closer, until finally the voice spoke again, so close that he flinched. "Blessed are those who have boilers... for they carry with them... the purifying... _purifying_... flame..."

His heart raced in his chest, cutting his breath short and leaving him shaking. It was fine, the machine hadn't seen him. In a few hours he would be home, a few thousand gold richer, with the recording in hand. He just had to stay still and wait for the machine to move on.

The bot--a combat bot, he saw now, just his luck--passed through the doorway, so near that the steam burned his face and he had to turn away. A water arrow, he thought. A water arrow to take out the boiler, save the flash bomb for more dire straits. He reached for his quiver as the bot waddled onward.

A sudden mechanical grinding froze him in place.

"I worship thee, O Karras."

Another mech, coming up behind the first. And how conceited could you get?

"I will vanquish thy enemies. I will tear thy foes into pieces. I long for the battle to begin."

If he waited until this one had gone passed, and assuming the first didn't try to double back, he could slip through the doorway behind it. There had to be another way around; there wasn't room for the robots to pass each other on their way back.

"Fire is The Builder's purification."

It was so close, just on the other side of the doorway. Usually the adrenaline made him faster, lighter on his feet. Today it just seemed to weigh him down.

"Blessed are those who are born of the fire."

The grinding came again. It was coming from a different direction than the one before, he thought. It sounded like it was coming at an angle.

"The flesh is sinful."

Something heavy bumped up against the door frame. He closed his eyes and willed himself to fade into the darkness.

"Woe to those who are born of it."

The grinding kept coming. It didn't get softer. It didn't move past. Then, suddenly, it paused.

Please just be looking around, Garrett thought, but the whining drone of a mech scanning the room didn't come.

It said, in a higher pitch and a louder voice, "Knowest thou... I have seen... a misguided soul."

Garrett opened his eyes just a little. Just enough to see the bot, caught on the door frame, looking back at him. The cannon arm just happened to be angled directly at him.

Shit, Garrett thought, and threw himself out of the way just as the bot fired.

A bit of shrapnel--cannonball? door frame? mortar from the bricks that made the wall--struck him in the shoulder and sent him stumbling. As the floor got closer and closer he tucked in his arms and head and turned it into a roll, aiming for the next door. He used the momentum to rise up into a run. Ahead of him the other bot had swiveled completely around and was coming toward him, still talking in the weird, malfunctioning way that made it impossible to understand, but he had to keep going: if he could just get close enough he could reach a spot where the bot's cannon couldn't reach and then he might just have room to vault over its body and get through to the other side...

But he focused so hard on the damage the cannon could do that he didn't see the gripper arm coming until it was too late.

A tine of its forked hand caught him under either arm and slammed him back into the door frame behind him, and as the upper tine sank into the wood it sliced open the fabric of his hood and opened a tiny cut in his throat.

Down, he thought, as the force of hitting the wall slammed him forward again. Down, through the tines, go under the bot--but the bot gave another jerk and its gripper arm drove deeper into the wall with such force that it knocked the breath from his lungs.

His hands came up to pull at the arm on instinct, but there was no way he could match the strength of the mech. If he popped his shoulder out of joint, he thought, struggling to pull air to his lungs, he might still be able to wriggle free. He didn't know how to do that. He had to try.

"Hostile..." It was the bot behind him again, trying to walk forward and still caught on the door frame. "_Wretched intruder!_ Mine arm... stretched... as Karras'..."

He tore at his arm--how did, how could, how--and struggled even though it was increasingly obvious that there was no getting out of this.

"Have..."--the first bot again, its face was turned directly toward him, he still couldn't breathe--"not determined... this incident."

Shut up, shut up, he was so sick and tired of Karras' voice.

The bot still stuck in the doorway began walking faster. He stopped pulling at his arms and frantically searched the pockets of his cloak. Flash bomb? No, too late for that, it didn't need to see him to keep him trapped. Water arrow? The boiler was on the bot's back, there was no way he could reach it with an arrow. His fingers closed around something flat and round and cold.

A mine.

He had no choice, he told himself. It was this or be caught. It was this or be murdered. He armed the mine, threw it just over the back of the bot, and made himself as small as possible.

The bot froze as if listening. "This incident... requires further instruction."

And the mine exploded.

The frame of the bot slammed forward into him, so hard that he could feel blood dripping down his face where it struck him. Before he was even sure the boiler had been destroyed he was pushing on the frame, struggling to get out from under the arm, but it was still jammed tight into the wood door frame. A fire arrow? He'd had two when he got in here... yes, there, bottom of the pocket. He tore it out and jabbed the crystal into the wood behind him.

This was a terrible idea, he thought as the fire caught and flickered. Too late now.


	17. "Stay with me"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Escape!
> 
> Everyone go read rednightmare's [Regaining Balance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4158078) or I'll stab ya.

Part of him wanted to die there in the trickster's mansion. Part of him was so weary, so tired, so utterly fed-up with the constant struggle, that he wasn't even afraid. At least if he died everything would stop being a constant ordeal.

There was part of him that disagreed, part of him that screamed at him to get up, but the weight of Viktoria's brambles was so much. How could it overcome all of this? Instead he lay bleeding on the floor of the trickster's mansion and slowly processed what had happened. In his head he heard the trickster say, over and over again before he understood it, "My poor Mister Garrett, you will not live to see the sprawling glory of it."

Part of him wanted the trickster to come back so that he could say to him, "Oh no, what a terrible punishment." Part of him wanted to stop the tears that ran uncontrolled through the blood on his face. Part of him wanted it all to be over.

No, that wasn't quite right. All of him wanted that.

Vaguely he heard footsteps moving through the grass, the distant murmuring of voices.

As if underwater: "In here?"

Drowning in it: "Yes."

The brambles moved around him, digging deeper into the parts of his skin still exposed. If he were dead he wouldn't feel the thousand tiny cuts, the pressure of the weight on his back, chest, his eviscerated face. The tears came faster.

"Since you left us... a stone rolling downhill..."

Something pulled on the brambles. A knife glinted in the light. Thorns pressed into his mouth, cutting his lips, stabbing into the wound of his eye.

"...momentum..."

The brambles tightened, tightened, then went slack. His body went slack as well.

"Garrett."

Someone's hands cradled his face. A thumb wiped the blood and tears and gore.

"Garrett. Stay with me."

Some one held him in their arms.

"You have to leave him."

"He can't... like this..."

"It's not your place to..."

"Garrett. _Garrett._ Stay with me."

Didn't want to stay. Wanted to be gone, far away, somewhere else in time and space. A street corner, maybe. Stopping a child as he made to follow an old man in a cloak. Telling him, It is better to starve.

Both voices now: "He will never..."

He would let the shock take him. He would offer his throat to the beast.

"...make it through."

"...forgive you."

Silence. A hand on his face pressed tight. "Stay with me, son."

A chill washed over him. Shock. Breathing was achingly slow.

"Artemus."

"He'll die."

"He chose this path."

That's right. His choice. He chose to let go of caring. He chose to die.

"If you won't help me I'll do it alone."

Arms. One under his shoulders, one under his knees. The bottom fell out of the world.

"Are you going to fight me, or are you going to let me pass?"

Part of him wanted to know why. All of him gave in to the darkness that waited.


	18. Muffled Scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Undercover

He doesn't have the strength to stand anymore. He hangs by the wrist, legs half-folded under him, and trembles as the Inquisitor untangles the chain around his throat.

"Good boy," the Inquisitor hums. He slides the last few links over Garrett's shoulder and lets it fall, striking his knee as it does. The pain bites through the bone itself. Garrett barely holds back a groan. Novices are silent. Until he's alone he must be too. "I can tell I'll like you. You should be proud of that. That's never happened with one of Markander's before."

If he were still at a point where not all of his energy is focused on survival Garrett might laugh. Sure. He's real proud. He'll have to tell the high priest next time he's there.

He's long past that point.

"Let me show you something." The Inquisitor comes close, so close that Garrett's head brushes against his chest. Something above his head clicks--the shackle--and he collapses. Now his weight falls on his right arm, still shackled some distance above, yanking his shoulder so hard he knows it's dislocated as well as his wrist. _Please_, he hopes, unused to begging and not sure to whom he's appealing.

The Inquisitor unlocks the other shackle and he falls to the floor. He almost moans, strangles it in his throat. The feeling rushes back into his hands and it's agonizing. He should run, get out while he can, tell Constantine he can keep his damn money... but he can't even lift himself off the floor. He stays silent, but his body shakes with sobs.

"That's it," the Inquisitor says, gently running a hand from the back of Garrett's neck to the base of his spine. "Lay still for me. Stay right there."

The room has gone blurry, so much that when the Inquisitor walks away he knows making a break for it won't work. Garrett doesn't even bother to lift his head. As his head throbs and pounds he manages to drag his left arm up far enough to lean on.

If he sleeps--if he even can sleep like this--would that get him enough of his strength back to fight? He's not sure. Not even sure how long it's been. There's no daylight in this room. The Inquisitor hasn't left him alone since...

His eyelids, already so heavy, close completely at that thought. Too long.

After that he must have dozed, because suddenly there's a heavy weight on the small of his back and the Inquisitor is speaking. Can't quite understand. Struggling to focus.

"...get it all out of you," the Inquisitor is saying. "...better..." More words that he doesn't catch. "Give me your hands."

A heavy hand locks down on his broken wrist and another on the unbroken but badly strained one. They pull sharply down--his head strikes the ground as his arm is pulled away, it hurts, he goes cold with unspoken pain--and pin his hands behind his back. Sharp stabbing pains cut through the wrist so badly cut. A cry almost breaks from his throat and he clenches his jaw.

At this moment it no longer matters that he keep his cover. Constantine can't expect this from him. But he can't stop. He's in so deep that he can't see any other way through this.

The Inquisitor wraps something around his wrists, something he could have broken free of if he weren't so drained of energy and strength and willpower. Hands creep over his sides like spiders.

He knows where this is going. He's not so out of it he can't see that.

The hands slide up, over the shoulders, pausing where the right is so badly pulled out of joint, stroke his neck--he sobs but holds it in, has to be silent--and come to rest, fingers splayed over the back of his head, thumbs pressed to the tender spots just behind his ears.

"Good boy," the Inquisitor breathes, and all Garrett can think is that he doesn't care any more about the money or getting caught, he'll kill this man. Then the pressure comes, the Inquisitor is pushing his thumbs down hard and Garrett struggles to hold back a moan, tries to fight against whatever is holding his wrists, and the Inquisitor lets up, so suddenly that his head is raised, and then the heel of his hand strikes his skull and Garrett's head slams into the floor.

The room spins. He doesn't know what is happening but can feel the novice robes being pushed up, bunching at his shoulders, but he can't...

As suddenly as it begins it stops. All he can do is lie there breathing hard, the Inquisitor's full weight on his lower back now, he doesn't understand, he's not here, he's...

The Inquisitor sighs. He slips off Garrett's back and moves into his field of view.

"You swore a vow of silence," he says. "You promised not to speak. No one asked you to give up your voice."

The revelation hits him hard. He finally understands what it is the Inquisitor wants from him, and it's something he's not sure he has to give.

"You're a clever boy. You understand what I'm saying."

Garrett opens his mouth and the words come up--please don't please stop please please please--and he holds them back. All that comes out is a broken sob.

The Inquisitor smiles at him. "There you go."

Garrett chokes on the words he wants to say and what comes up instead is just sounds, pained, frightened sounds, and the Inquisitor turns him on his back. He is smiling. Garrett looks at that gentle smile and the sobs break him.

"There's a good boy," the Inquisitor whispers. He slides his body over Garrett's trembling, jerking form and cradles his head in his arms. "Let it all out." His face brushes against Garrett's and he whispers in his ear, "What a good, beautiful, good boy."

As he moves the pain gets worse. Garrett's shoulder, his wrist, still bound beneath him, the ache in his throat that only intensifies as the Inquisitor traces the bruises there. Everything.

As it's happening Garrett bites down into the fabric of the robes. He muffles himself against the Inquisitor's shoulder, and he screams.


	19. Asphyxiation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: The Lost City

The air in the lost city is so thin it hurts to breathe. It's the heat, partially, and the smoke, and the ash. There's something else, too, something Garrett hasn't quite identified yet. It has nothing to do with the lost city--he brought it here with him.

For the last few months he's been consistently short of breath. Looking back it may have started on that first mission for Constantine, wandering around that maze of a mansion. He suspects it was that room on the third floor, the airless one, the one where nothing seemed to weigh him down. Everything comes at a price, doesn't it?

He pauses on the roof of a half-sunken house to fight for air, one hand on his knee and the other on Constantine's sword. Feels like he's drowning, but instead of water he's buried under sand.

The Keepers would choose this place, wouldn't they.

The air is so thin his collarbones ache. Tingling sensations spread over his body--not enough oxygen, too much movement--and he tries to lower himself down to a sitting position and fails. He collapses on his back, staring up at the darkness above the city as his hands grope blindly at his throat.

Is there a breathing potion with his supplies? He can't remember. It's unlikely. They're so expensive, and down here water arrows are a better investment.

Someone is gasping for air, someone who is probably him, and he listens to the dry rattle of his lungs keeping time. There's not much he can do besides wait and hope for adrenaline to kick in. He's not scared to die--everyone dies in the end--but he can't leave this job unfinished. That would be like admitting to the Keepers that they were right in the end, that their way was better and that he should never have left them, and he does not believe that, not even a little. Even if he knew then what he knew now, he would do it again.

A thousand tiny sparks flicker in and out of his vision. His hands grow still. He's out of air. He's out of energy. He's out of time.

_He'll wake in less than an hour. Being unconscious makes breathing easier than being awake and fighting. He'll move on, shaky but alive, through the lost city, and he'll claim that talisman. Later, so much later, when the maw of chaos erupts with magic, he'll let go of his sword and watch it turn to dust in the air. And, just like that, the shortness of breath will evaporate like dew on the grass._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously that's why Garrett's back to blindingly shiny swords in The Metal Age--he got sick and tired of hauling around the Asthma sword.  
I have no idea what I'm doing.


	20. Numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Undercover
> 
> CW for rape  
at this point chapter numbers won't represent days on the calendar any more.

"Come on," the high priest whispers. "Come on. You have my permission."

The novice doesn't. He doesn't resist, but he doesn't let himself release. That is fine. The challenge is what appeals to the high priest, after all. The challenge, and how much the novices fall apart when they are finally pushed past the limits of their will. They always come in the end.

The high priest reaches for his knife and slices down the from of the novice's robes and the dark clothes he wears beneath. Above his collarbones the flush spreads up his neck, across his face, but below his body is pale and stiff. His belly seems to flutter as the high priest trails kisses across it.

"What a beautiful, soft boy," he whispers. His lips draw lower and the novice's body bucks once before he can restrain himself. "This will feel so good. You deserve to feel good." The novice is shaking. His hips bounce ever so slightly up and down as if that will stop what he is feeling. When the high priest raises his head he can see the novice chewing on his lip. "Markander would never have given you this." He takes the novice in his hand and the boy's body jerks, as if he starts to fight back before remembering where he is. "Tell me. Tell me how good it feels."

The novice shakes his head. He's still holding to his vow of silence. That's all right. He's not the high priest's first.

Humming quietly to himself, the high priest cuts two long strips of cloth from the initiate's robe and moves toward his head. "Open your mouth. There's a good boy." He balls up the first strip and forces it into the novice's mouth so hard that he gags and almost manages to sit up. The other strip he knots once in the middle and wraps around the novice's head, positioning that first knot to hold the rest of the fabric in his mouth. For a moment he has to pause to enjoy his handiwork. "There we are. Pretty as a picture. Let me hear you tell me how good you feel."

The novice's face is flushed red with humiliation and arousal. Tears fill his eyes.

The high priest cradles his cheek in his hand and wipes away a stream of tears with the pad of his thumb just as they flood down the novice's face. "Is this your first time?"

The novice's lips curl around the thick fabric holding them apart. Slowly he nods.

"Does it feel better than when you do it to yourself?" But the novice stares at him with eyes filled deep with confusion, and the high priest stills his fingers on the novice's face. "You haven't... not even on your own?"

The novice's eyes flick away, but it doesn't matter. He has already given his answer.

The high priest has had virgins before, but not like this. Even the youngest eventually admit to self-abuse. But this one, at this age, is a virgin in every sense of the word. Amazing. The high priest is even more eager to watch the novice's face as he falls apart. "A good, beautiful, innocent boy. Markander doesn't know what he's lost."

In the slim pale column of his throat the novice's pulse is visibly pounding. His teeth bite down into the strip of fabric. The high priest traces his jawline and thrills to the feel of the novice's scruffy stubble--he is perfect.

The Builder truly has blessed his priest.

He brushes his hand so, so lightly down the novice's body, eyes scanning the scars and bruises, not all of which are fresh. Before he came to the Builder this boy led a difficult life. He kisses each one that is visible: a vertical scar on the novice's shoulder, a yellowed bruise near his collarbone, the marks on his throat left by the links of the chain.

It is very difficult to hear through the wad of fabric, but the novice whimpers as it's happening.

"Stop it," the high priest snaps, irritated. "This feels good, doesn't it?" He kisses lower and lower until he's dipped below the novice's waist, and when he nips gently at that tender flesh the novice's hips thrust up into the stimulation. "No one's hurting you. Unless that's what you want?" He raises his head to see the novice's face. "Would this be more enjoyable if you were chained up?"

The novice shakes his head frantically.

"Alright then. You know what it is I'm looking for."

When he lowers his head again and rubs his lips over the sensitive skin above the groin the novice moans softly. The sound is hesitant; this isn't truly what he's feeling, the sound is conscious rather than instinctual, but he's testing the waters. The high priest rewards him with some tongue, tracing lower and lower until he tastes the salt of the most sensitive part of the novice's body. Now there's a sharp inhale from the novice and his hips jerk to one side, unconsciously trying to maximize contact. Where's the fun in that?

Instead of giving him what he so clearly wants the high priest runs his hands lightly over the novice's thighs and nudges them slowly, slowly apart. For a moment there is resistance, a trembling of muscles, but it quickly gives out. One more kiss to the delicate nerves, widening to apply just a bit of suction, and the novice gives a desperate grunt, struggling to sit up. The high priest hums, just a little, just enough, and the novice cries out.

He won't last long, not if he truly is so inexperienced. With a pop of his lips the high priest raises his head and takes over with his hand, fixing his gaze on the novice's face. His face is a mix of panic and pleasure. He grips the fabric tight in his mouth and shakes his head vigorously.

"Come on," the high priest says soothingly. "This will feel so good."

The novice's head jerks to one side, then to the other. He's denying himself, and why shouldn't he? It will make it all the more beautiful when he can't fight it anymore. His silence breaks and it's almost a bellow through the gag. His hips shudder and his body writhes. His eyes are blurred with tears.

"That's it. Let me hear how it feels."

Those blurred eyes meet his, by accident, it has to be, but there's this flash of disbelief before the novice's legs strain. He's trying to close his legs. Trying to lift himself up. He moans, begging for something without words and he screws up his face like he can prevent this from happening and then he screams. His voice breaks. His body breaks. Beautiful. He slumps back, and the light in his bright eyes seems to dim. His body shudders and spasms, but he no longer responds to the high priest's touch.

The high priest kisses his flushed, oversensitive neck and leaves him on the floor of the dungeon.


	21. Trembling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Metal Age  
Mission: Trail of Blood

At first she thought that the thief was shaking in fear, but even like this, pinned against a tree by the same vines that had torn out his eye, Viktoria doubted the thief would show fear so openly.

Then she heard the tiny, muted choking noises that escaped his throat. Then she understood.

She'd seen him do this once before, long ago, when the trickster offered him a glass of brandy. The thief had given it a doubtful look and the glass went untouched all night. It wasn't until the trickster offered a toast to this new mission and its rewards--the Eye for him and a hefty sum of gold for the thief--that he had finally downed that thick green liquid in a single gulp.

Later, when the trickster had gone and Viktoria was alone, it was her flora in that brandy that alerted her to the fact that the thief hadn't left. Expecting to find him looting the areas of the house that had been beyond his reach before, she instead found him sunk down against an outside wall, breathing hard and digging his fingers into the leather armor he wore. When his body relaxed, just for a moment, and the convulsions took hold, she understood what was happening.

Now she lowered the thief to the sparse grass of the maw forest and watched him tremble and shake. What had triggered it this time? she wondered. The last she was sure was an effect of the trickster's brandy, but this?

With the tender sprouting little vine she tipped the thief's head so that the bruising on his neck was visible. Perhaps this? Pain, or fear, or whatever it was that the thief had felt when the treebeast broke that fragile little bone in his throat.

Whatever the reason, the thief seized for no more than a minute before his body stilled. His eyes, which had never fully closed, seemed to search the forest without seeing. After some time he tried to raise himself up on his elbows but fell back, clutching at his skull and hissing in pain.

"Be still," Viktoria told him. Instead he tried to turn onto his side and she sent a thicket of vines to hold him down. "You've just had a seizure."

"Bullsh..." the thief whispered before the pain in his throat stopped him dead.

At that Viktoria laughed. "Believe what you want, Garrett." She curled the vines loosely around his wrists and held them to the ground. "It won't change the truth."

The thief didn't struggle against her. He lay quietly, pulse throbbing gently but much too quickly under her vines. His only movement came when his body tried to swallow--a flinch as the fractured bone in his throat shifted. Eventually his breathing slowed.

"Garrett," she said. No response came and she gently shook his shoulder. Still nothing came. He was completely lost to the world.

She released his wrists and left him sleeping. "Come, Larkspur. Tell me about Dayport."


	22. Laced Drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Metal Age  
Mission: Ambush!

The migraine aura hit just as he was handing over the idol from the Shoalsgate Station job. He winced and pressed the heel of his hand into his temple, as if that would put an end to it.

"What's the matter, Garrett?" Sammy asked, snatching the idol from his hand. "You don't look so great."

"I'm fine," he snapped. Times like this he genuinely missed Cutty. The man had been a drunken lech, and he got himself arrested at the worst possible time, but at least he knew to keep his mouth shut. "Just give me my money."

"Sure, sure." Sammy slid a purse across the table. "It's all there. Go on, count it."

For a moment the words all seemed to blur together, and Garrett just stared at the little pouch. Or... was it little? Sammy's bottle, sitting just beyond it, looked too big, and the mugs of beer looked to be two different sizes. Everything felt... off.

"Sure you're feeling okay?"

He raised his head enough to see Sammy and there was a smile on his face, a jagged, distorted smile. "I'm..."

"Maybe you better have a lie-down. Hey! Barkeep!"

His voice was so unbearably loud. Garrett closed his fingers around the purse and smothered a groan.

"My friend here's had a little too much to drink! How about I give you a fiver and he sleeps it off in the cellar?"

"Haven't..." Garrett's eyes strayed to his own mug. He'd barely touched it all night; if he'd wanted watered-down swill he'd have gotten drunk in his own neighborhood. At least there he knew the ins and outs. "I'm not..."

"Course you're not." Sammy smiled at him and it looked like his grin was so big it must have hurt. "Not Mister Garrett, definitely not."

Somebody grabbed him under the arms and though he grabbed at the table for support they dragged him to his feet. The room was spinning. He was going to be sick... No, not while he was in the damn pub. He struggled to pry the hands off him--why were there so many, what the hell kind of barkeep--and they just... kept coming? Endless hands in blue sleeves, his own hands going numb and weak, and as he struggled his eyes fell on the mug of beer. He raised his head to find Sammy still smirking that ugly self-satisfied smirk. Suddenly it all made sense.

He'd drugged the goddamn beer.

"You son of a..." he spat out, words slurring together, and threw himself forward so hard that some of the hands lost their grip on him and he fell forward against the table, grabbing at Sammy. The fence jumped up. His chair hit the ground with a crash so loud it set Garrett's teeth on edge, which slowed him up enough that somebody got him by the back of the collar and slammed his face down into the scarred wood. The air rushed out of his lungs and he found himself struggling for breath in a puddle of dumped beer. His? Sammy's?

He looked up and Sammy looked back.

"You s..." he tried to say. "Set... S-sold..."

Sammy gave him a shrug and a grin and raised his bottle in a toast. Behind him he heard the scrape of a sword being drawn from a scabbard. It was City Watch, all right, and he had a feeling they weren't overly invested in just bringing him in.

Fine. If that was the way this was gonna go, he was glad he still had an ace up his sleeve.

He tore the flash bomb from his pocket and slammed it into the table beside him.

He closed his eyes before he did it but even with his face turned away the light seemed to burn right through his eyelids and split his skull in half. He twisted free of the hands holding him down--six guards? seven?--and ran for the door, his vision still spotty and unreliable. He slammed into the wall beside the door but got through, and then he ran.

He ran across the street and leapt the wall into the back alley. Feet went out from under him on the dew-dampened cobblestones and he slid into the wall of the next building over. His head was splitting open, it felt like. He thought of Sammy and his damn laced drink and he wanted it out of his damn body. There wasn't time, he knew that, but he still grabbed hold of the brickwork behind him and jammed two fingers down the back of his throat and held them there until the gagging turned productive and he threw up everything in his stomach in that dark back alley.

When he looked up, still unsteady on his feet, he found a pair of women, obviously spending their evening gossiping, staring at him.

"Ladies," he rasped out, and he ran.


	23. Hallucination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: The Mage Towers

He was overheated from the lava in the fire tower and sick to his stomach from the gas arrows he'd had to use in the air tower, but there were Hand Brotherhood mages all over the library and he had to lay low for a while. He didn't trust the guards enough to assume they kept to a rigid patrol route, so the only place he could hide was there in the library. He slipped through an open door into the meditation room.

At first it seemed the lights were doused in here, but after a moment his eyes adjusted to the low light and he saw that there was some light, not much but some, coming from the incense burners hanging around the room. They gave off just enough light to make out the cold hard tiles that covered the floor and walls and the block-bench things left for people to meditate on. He could also just make out four figures, each sitting in a corner, staring at him.

His heart shot into his throat and he turned to duck back into the library but just beyond he could see a guard armed with bow and arrows and a Hand mage, their patrols overlapping just outside the meditation room, and he had a choice to make--face the armed guards, or face the mages within.

Mages who, it seemed, had yet to attack him.

He took a quick glance over his shoulder and saw that the figures hadn't moved. They still sat one in each corner. Moving closer he took a harder look and realized they were statues. Each one easily matched the height of a man from on top of the block, and, though it was hard to tell in this light, they appeared to all be completely identical men with long beards that ran down into the folds of their long flowing robes. The jagged carvings on their heads could have been human faces, but in the dark they looked almost snake-like.

"Creepy," he muttered.

As the adrenaline pumping through his veins slowed down he felt tired, tired and cold. Part of him was tempted to just burst into the library, run for the sewers, and scram, no matter how much he might alert the guards and mages. After all, he had the talisman he needed. Even if there was still loot lying around he was in good shape.

But at the same time, there was still that little part of him that was never satisfied. The Keepers had wanted him to be thorough? Fine. He could be thorough in ways they probably didn't even appreciate.

He sat down on the bench out of sight of the door, behind the nearest statue, and rested his head on the cool stone just for a moment. He'd just catch his breath and then he'd finish up in the compound.

As he leaned he ran his fingers over the carving on the talisman's surface. Three more, he told himself. Three more of these and then a quick jaunt through the sealed section and he could retire in style.

A voice, low and gravely and unfamiliar, whispered in his ear, "Greed will be your undoing, poor Garrett."

His eyes snapped open (when had he closed them?) and he sprang up from the bench, glancing around the room. Still dark. Still empty. Still cold, and completely silent.

Had he fallen asleep? Maybe he'd only dreamed the voice. That was the most logical explanation... and yet he didn't quite believe it. He didn't fall asleep while out on jobs. That was not something he would ever do.

If the room was empty, could it be Keepers?

No. He saw the Keepers watching him sometimes, but they never spoke. But no, that would go against their precious principles, wouldn't it.

He looked up at the statue, and heard another voice behind him. It said, "Betrayal will force you to see, Garrett." The voice came from... it didn't seem possible, but it seemed to be coming from the second statue.

In a way that was a relief. He was hallucinating. All that time in the lava chambers and air tower had messed him up good, and now he was hearing statues talk.

"They can't betray you if you never trusted them to begin with," he told the statue, tapping his temple with one finger. The words sounded almost sad coming out of his mouth. The Keepers... no, it was nothing. He just hadn't phrased it correctly.

"Deception is your power, Garrett," the third statue whispered.

It was time to go. He picked up the earth talisman--when he'd jumped up so fast he'd slung it halfway across the meditation room; it was a wonder the mages and guards hadn't heard him--and took a slow, careful look through the cracked door. The lights had gone down since he'd last looked out. Nobody was in sight, and he couldn't hear footsteps.

As he eased the door farther open the fourth statue, the one by the door, the one right at his shoulder, whispered.

"Do not let fear control your path, Garrett."

He started to turn around and say that he wasn't afraid, that he'd seen things as a thief and a keeper apprentice and a starving orphan that would have broken weaker men, that no one, no one, could make him afraid anymore. He started to turn back, but as he did he realized that he had nothing to argue with the voice in his head.

He hesitated in the doorway for just a moment, considering his next move, and then he slipped out into the library and disappeared into the stacks.


	24. Bleeding Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Mission: Return to the Cathedral

A Hammer does not run from a fight. He does not fear pain.

_The stone cannot know why the chisel cleaves it; the iron cannot know why the fire scorches it. To be forged anew requires plunging headlong into the flame._

The fire that burns without end may consume the Hammer but it will take all around him as well. Here in the darkness of the cathedral the Hammer's eyes burn as his sword slices through the thief's throat.

"Join us," he shouts while the thief chokes on blood. "Join us now."

The thief's own blade, dark as night, clatters to the floor. Beneath him his legs fold and he falls to his knees. His hands grasp at his neck but cannot stop the bleeding.

"Join us," the Hammer whispers, now one of a chorus singing the same. His kind walk these halls, patrol these streets. The very rafters echo with the word of the Builder. Its power drowns out the gurgle of blood in the thief's throat.

_Before death came, the liars were made to feast upon the hands of the thieves, and the thieves were made to ingest the tongues of their liar brothers._

The thief is drowning. His life drains away before his very eyes: a dark stain radiating from his body and sinking deep into the foundations of the cathedral itself.

_We praised the Master Builder for his judgements._

As the thief's heart pounds in the darkness the Hammer gives praise to the Master Builder. Such a blessing the Master Builder offers. Such a gift, to be forged anew.

The burn of the fire brings pain, but there is always a moment, just before the final shaping, where the pain disappears.

The thief sinks to the floor, unseeing, unknowing, still as death.

There is always that beautiful moment.


	25. Secret Injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
Post-Into the Maw of Chaos

Garrett notices him as he is crossing the cemetery.

"Keepers," he scoffs.

Artemus falls into step beside this wayward apprentice, keeping his gaze directed ahead. "So. You think you've won."

"I think I've got my eye back."

For a moment they make eye contact. The distance is only a few feet but it seems insurmountable. The mechanical eye, settled in the empty socket Artemus had seen so bloody and gory not a day before, whirs and clicks ever so slightly as it looks around. It's not a seamless fit, but at a distance Garrett looks no different from any other man with a black eye and a smirk. "Yet still you are blind."

Garrett scoffs again. He is the first to break eye contact. "In case you hadn't noticed, I just saved the world, yourself included."

There is a soft, almost lonely part of Artemus that wants to tell the thief yes, he has noticed, he has been watching Garrett from the moment he left the Keeper compound and though he can't approve of his motives he is intensely proud of the skills Garrett has developed. "As we knew you would."

Garrett shakes his head. "Now I remember why I left the Keepers."

"And I remember why we let you go."

Garrett stops dead. The cold breeze whips snow drifts around his legs. "What do you want from me? Did you come to congratulate me? Welcome me back into the fold?"

A warm light--the sexton's house, fire burning bright in the fireplace, lighting the windows with yellows and reds--illuminates the scowl on Garrett's face. That look saddens Artemus. There was never any doubt of this outcome. He knew that if Garrett succeeded he would never forgive them for leaving him, wounded and alone, in the trickster's mansion. But the bitterness that radiates from Garrett still feels like a closing door that can never be unlocked.

"Very well." Artemus keeps walking, leaving Garrett little choice but to follow. "I will speak my piece plainly. You have accomplished that which was written, and yes, you've done it well. But there is no place for you with us any longer. Yet you will have a great need of us, and soon."

"Yeah, I don't think so. I'm done with heroics, and I'm done with Keepers."

For a moment he might as well be looking at that tiny starving orphan who'd reached for his pocket all those years ago. "You cannot run from life as you did from us, Garrett. Life has a way of finding you."

"I'm not..." Garrett stumbles over the words. A surprise--perhaps he is more vulnerable than Artemus thought. "I'm not running from anything. Or I wouldn't be, if you Keepers would leave me alone."

"You have more friends than you know."

"Tell my 'friends' I don't need them. Tell them I'm through. Tell them it's over."

Artemus stops and watches as Garrett limps away into the winter night. "I'll tell them this: nothing is changed, and all is as it was written."

There is no response, and soon the thief has vanished into the darkness.

To embrace a cause, to grow fond or spiteful, is to lose one's balance, Mayar had written. Artemus, eyes straining in the darkness for one last glimpse of the boy who'd been his protege, fears he has already fallen.

* * *

Garrett has made no effort to hide his tracks. He knows that Artemus will follow. There are words still to say.

Unhurriedly Artemus follows the trail. Here Garrett turned a corner down a dark alley. Here he paused for no more than a few seconds. And here, where the snow is disturbed, is where he fell.

Artemus follows the tracks past this spot. The thief had gotten to his feet again here, just beyond, and his tracks grow uneven as they continue.

Here, not twelve yards beyond, the thief fell again, and he has not yet found it in himself to rise.

"I told you I'm done," Garrett hisses through chattering teeth as Artemus moves him nearer to the alley wall. Even in this weather, so far below freezing, his body burns.

Artemus pulls back the thief's cloak and finds a bandage, damp with melted snow and oozing fluid, affixed to the place where his neck and shoulder meet. Despite the thief's protests he removes the bandage and finds himself looking down at a deep sword wound. Someone has stitched it neatly, but three of the stitches have torn free.

"Get your damn hands off me." Garrett grabs at his wrist as if to pull him away, but he is so weak that it is Artemus who catches him. There are more bandages here, beneath his sleeves. Artemus unwinds the gauze--Garrett tries to struggle but barely has the strength to do so--and finds deep lacerations in the thief's wrists. The one on his left arm is swollen, infected, the smell bad enough that Garrett turns away to retch into the snow. Artemus traces the wound. It is not hard to identify it as marks from wrist shackles.

"Who did this to you?" he asks, keeping his voice level. Garrett doesn't respond. It hardly matters. Despite the snow Artemus strips back the thief's clothes, expecting more wounds and not entirely prepared for what he'll find. Garrett shoves his hands away as he slides the cloak from his shoulders, but Artemus is able to make out the pattern of bruises in the flesh of his neck: the links of a chain that drew too tight.

"Don't," Garrett says, but Artemus easily pins his hands above his head and opens his shirt to find more bruises, bruises and marks not unlike teeth. As he pulls at the thief's trousers a strangled cry tears from Garrett's throat. A gentle palpation leads Artemus to believe that the thief's pelvis has been fractured, but there is more. He only has to look into Garrett's eyes to see that there is more.

There are tears in the thief's eyes, but he tries to harden his face. "Don't pretend you care," he tells Artemus.

Artemus doesn't answer. What is there to say?

He releases Garrett's arms and as the thief closes his shirt Artemus pulls from his pockets a bottle of holy water and a healing potion. He takes Garrett's hand in his own and pours the holy water onto the infected wound, and though the thief winces he does not make a sound. Artemus tears long strips from his own cloak and wraps them around each of Garrett's wrists. He puts the healing potion into Garrett's hands.

"Drink this," he says. "Drink all of it and then go home and rest."

"I don't need your sympathy," Garrett says.

It is too late for that. Many, many years too late. But Artemus nods--it pains him, but it must be done--rises, and returns to the darkness. He leaves the thief lying in the snow against the building.


	26. Humiliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dark Project  
post-Into the Maw of Chaos

He watches at a distance for some time before Garrett tries to stand. He's like a newborn fawn, limbs weak and shaky, and Artemus knows that he will never make it home in this condition.

If he does this the thief will never forgive him, but his sins are already too much. Artemus thinks of the lessons of Mayar and returns anyway.

Garrett is shivering, his thin pale fingers struggling to retie the cloak around his neck. When Artemus kneels and reaches for the buttons he jerks away. Disappointing but not unexpected--he has never liked accepting help. But, as the blood on the trickster's mansion floor can attest, that doesn't mean he won't need it. As much as he struggles and complains Garrett never draws his weapon.

There is no good way to carry him, not with the fracture in his pelvis. Over his shoulder--perhaps the easiest way, since Artemus is not as strong as he once was--would put either pressure or strain or both on his hip. In his arms, like a child... Garrett's dignity will never allow that, Artemus tells himself (he carefully shuts away his own feelings on the idea). All he can think is helping him walk: one arm around his shoulder, supporting him.

But the fracture...

He touches Garrett's hip gently. "If I help you, can you walk?"

"Don't..." Garrett winces as he tries to sit up, his weight falling sideways on his hip. "Don't want your help."

Artemus doesn't comment on that. What Garrett wants is irrelevant. "Put your arms around my neck."

"Leave me alone, old man."'

In the end it doesn't really matter--Garrett is too weak to hold on anyway. Artemus pulls him to his feet, leaning him against the wall, and lifts him from there. He's too old for this, he thinks; they both are. But Garrett gasps when his weight shifts onto his hips and he does put his arms around Artemus' neck. His body is so weak but still so tense. He is barely holding it together.

They cross the snow-covered streets of the City quickly. He knows where to go and always has: the room where Garrett lives is dark and chilly, but it's better than being out in the elements. Artemus forces the lock, deposits Garrett on the narrow bed, and looks for candles, lamps, something. The room is almost completely barren.

He returns to Garrett. The thief is still conscious, barely, and when Artemus begins to strip off his clothes he gives a weak shake of his head, tries to protest, lifts one hand from the bed and grabs at Artemus' wrist. When Artemus takes that hand in his and gently forces it back down at Garrett's side he won't make eye contact.

Artemus holds him like that until he has lapsed into sleep.

Beneath his clothes Garrett is bathed in bruises. His chest and sides are violet with them. Artemus suspects there are broken ribs beneath, or at the very least fractured ones. Beneath his trousers it only gets worse. It all but confirms what Artemus has suspected.

He pulls the bedclothes down under Garrett and then pulls them back to cover his body. Though he is shivering he is feverish, and he will surely need something to stand between himself and the world.

Artemus thinks he knows who is responsible for the worst of the thief's injuries. Not the trickster--Garrett would not be here if that were the case. Artemus has heard stories of the high priest's abuses before. He regrets that this has happened to Garrett. No. No, it's more than that. Artemus is infuriated, but he's not sure at whom his anger is directed. The Keepers, for refusing to get involved? Garrett, for his refusal to back down from a path that has always been headed for his ruin? Himself, for letting this happen?

There is something about Garrett that disturbs Artemus' balance. It has been years since he trusted himself to remain impartial toward him.

As Garrett sleeps Artemus walks the length of the room, familiarizing himself with its interior. The only features besides the bed are a window beside the headboard and a closet set into the wall. Behind the closet he finds a secret compartment, evidently where Garrett stores the tools of his trade. Beyond that he finds little in the way of personal items. Clearly Garrett spends most of his time elsewhere.

As he is examining a scouting orb Garrett begins to weep.

When he comes over he finds Garrett's eyes half-open, and the thief himself not quite awake. Artemus wipes the tears from his good eye. "Have you been to a healer about this?"

Garrett just looks at him, his body shaking.

"There are infections that can take hold when... when this has been done to someone. A healer could help prevent that."

"What did you do to me," Garrett whispers.

"I brought you home, got you out of the wet clothes, and covered you with the blanket. That is all."

Does Garrett remember anything of the last few hours? Even if he does Artemus understands why he does not believe him.

"I'll leave, if that is what you'd prefer. I only needed to be sure you were safe." Artemus steps back toward the door.

"I..." Garrett looks up at the ceiling and chuckles bitterly. "Keeper business."

"Yes." Though he knows otherwise Artemus will never admit it.

"Surprised you didn't leave me out there, then."

For the briefest of moments Artemus wants to tell him that he had hated leaving him in the trickster's mansion, that it was the hardest thing he ever had to do. The moment passes. That is his burden to bear, not Garrett's.

The tears are still leaking from Garrett's eyes. He doesn't seem to realize he's crying. "I saved you. I saved everything."

"You did." Garrett's gaze roams over the ceiling. He looks confused. Dehydrated, perhaps. The wound in his shoulder still oozes blood through the torn stitches, and whatever else the Hammers did for him they didn't wash the blood from his face. "Now it's time to save yourself."

The light that's always there in the back of Garrett's eyes flickers.

"Get some sleep. Let your wounds heal. The future holds trials you refuse to see."

"Rent's due at the end of the week." Garrett chuckles, then groans and presses his wrist to his forehead. "Saved the world and still have to pay the rent."

"How much."

"What do you care?"

"Garrett, how much."

"Keepers aren't supposed to interfere."

"Consider this an investment in my own future. You need your rest."

Still Garrett says nothing. He tries to turn on his side and gasps in pain as the fracture in his pelvis shifts. The gasp is dangerously close to a sob. "Oh... oh god..."

Artemus comes to help him lie down again. "Lie still. You don't want to risk a hemorrhage." Garrett is shaking. "Breathe. Breathe through it." That long-ago Keeper training kicks in as Garrett draws in a shaky breath, holds it for a moment, then lets it go. "Good."

The blankets have shifted. He can almost see the pulse in Garrett's bare shoulders, throbbing beneath the stitches, rocking him up and down as it pounds through his body. His eye has gone glassy. His skin is as white as snow.

"Garrett, the fracture... Did you get this in the trickster's realm, or was it like this when you...."

"When you left me to die? Yeah."

"Was it fresh? Your eye was the most obvious wound, but there was so little time to look."

"What do you care?"

"I want to know how long you've been walking around on it. Was it before or after the Hammer temple? Before you..." Artemus swallows hard. This is embarrassing for them both. "Before..."

"Before I fucked the high priest?" Garrett asks. His voice is flat.

"Before you were raped," Artemus says softly.

Garrett rears back at that. "Nobody did that. I chose to stay."

Artemus closes his eyes. This is not a discussion he wants to have.

"I got what I wanted in the end."

"You wanted him to do that to you?" Artemus nods at the badly infected wrist wound. "At the time he believed you were a novice. He was your superior. To have that much power over someone--that isn't consent."

"Good thing I wasn't a novice, then, isn't it."

And yet as he says it Garrett's shoulders begin to tremble. "Would you have been able to turn him down and walk away?" No response comes. "I'm not trying to embarrass you, Garrett. But you need to be honest with yourself about what happened or it will tear you apart."

Garrett closes his eyes.

"We don't have to talk about it. Do you have supplies beyond what's in the back of the closet? That wound on your shoulder should be closed."

There is no response. Artemus is not surprised.

"I'll be back in the morning with supplies. Stay in bed and rest. Don't put pressure on that fracture."

"The what?" Garrett mumbles.

* * *

The delirium has only grown worse when Artemus returns. Garrett has been moving, trying to get up, it appears, and he's fallen again. The bed covers are tangled around him. He's lying on the floor, one hand on the bed as if he's going to try and stand, but his face is turned toward the bed, putting pressure on the prosthetic eye. Garrett always has made a habit of hurting himself only to spite others. When Artemus puts a hand gently one his shoulder he gives a startled cry. Perhaps this isn't an attempt to prove him wrong after all. Perhaps his consciousness is so altered that he doesn't understand how badly he's hurting himself. "Quiet, Garrett. I'm here."

The blanket smells of urine and blood. He must have been trying to get up, to help himself, and not had the strength to do so. Tears are pouring from Garrett's eyes, so many that his right eye is swollen and raw. When Artemus tries to brush the tears away Garrett struggles.

Artemus curses to himself. "Alright. Lie still while I get some water."

Garrett has no supply of water in the room--it's so sparsely furnished, and Garrett so naive in the way he cares for himself, that it comes as little surprise. Artemus brings a bucket from the pump down the street--the water is freezing but he has no way to warm it--and slips into a downstairs room. It's dark but he can hear gentle breathing. Whoever lives here is sleeping. He tracks down a blanket in their closet, which is much better stocked with essentials, then returns to Garrett.

"I'm going to touch your shoulder," he tells the thief. Even so Garrett shudders with a repressed sob as Artemus' fingers brush his skin. "I'm not going to hurt you, but we need to get you off the floor." He writhes as Artemus tries to turn him onto his back. Feverish--the gloves are clearly rough on his skin. The gloves, and the blanket, and the floor... "I know it hurts. Lie still."

But as he unwraps the blanket from Garrett's legs the thief finds enough strength in himself to fight back. He reaches for a blade that isn't there, follows through with a fist in the sore spot at the juncture of Artemus' neck and shoulder. He doesn't say a word.

It's too much stimulation for him. Artemus understands. He lets him work out his fear and with it the last of his strength. When he's reduced to curling in on himself, struggling to breathe through tears, that's when Artemus finally sits on the floor beside him. "I need to get you cleaned up. The last thing you need is an open sore. May I get the blanket off you?"

Garrett pulls at the blanket by fistfuls. "It felt good."

"I'm sorry?"

Garrett's eyes squeeze shut. "If it was fucking rape," he screams. "Then why did it feel good?"

Something inside him that he thought had found the slightest bit of balance absolutely shattered. "Oh, Garrett."

Broken ribs or fractured ribs, Garrett is sobbing. He's still the half-starved child on the streets whose wrist was like paper in Artemus' grasp. Nothing has changed. Nothing.

He cries and cries and retches up nothing at all and cries even through that. When Artemus tries to touch his shoulder he screams again with every ounce of air in his battered body.

The downstairs neighbors are awake, pounding on the ceiling directly under where Garrett is lying. He can't stay there. This isn't what Garrett wants but it has to be done.

Artemus takes both of his arms and pins them up above his head. Garrett is still screaming--"No," is all Artemus can make out, more angry than begging or maybe the other way around--but it has to be done. He takes his knife and cuts the blanket off him because he doesn't have time to do anything else and Garrett is screaming and struggling and the fracture is going to get worse so he lets Garrett go and takes hold of that bucket of freezing cold water and just throws it on him.

Garrett screams once more, one last time, and collapses in tears.

Artemus takes the stolen blanket and moves him onto it. Wraps the blanket around him tight and though his back screams at him he hauls the thief off the floor and onto the bed. He lies down beside him and holds him tight against his chest.

"I know," he whispers. "I know." He runs his hand through the short damp hair on the back of Garrett's head and something twists inside, something else so dangerously close to shattering. "You're safe. It's over." A lie, of course, but that is between them anymore. "Be still."

He isn't sure Garrett hears him anymore. He holds him anyway, until long after the sobbing fades away and the thief goes still in his arms.

* * *

As Garrett sleeps Artemus wipes away some of the dampness on his face. Some of it is sweat. Some of it is tears. Some of it is water.

The banging from downstairs has stopped, and the world is deceptively still. The sun will rise in a few hours, just as it always does. The City will come alive with people moving through its streets. In the meantime Garrett needs rest, and healing, and enough water to keep dehydration at bay. His shoulder is still torn open, and two additional stitches have ripped out of his flesh. The fractured bones will need care, though there is little Artemus can do except keep him quiet and resting. A pelvic binder, perhaps--but if it were that kind of fracture Garrett would most likely have hemorrhaged to death hours ago--and something has to be done about the infected wound on his wrist.

When the thief begins to come around again his fever is a bit lower, his eyes a little more clear. He watches in exhausted silence as Artemus gathers his supplies again.

"This will hurt," he tells the thief, laying the needle and thread beside him. He takes a clear, slim vial from his pocket--a substance a keeper shouldn't have, but Garrett is no longer a keeper and Artemus no longer knows what he is. "You should drink this. It's derived from a plant the keepers use to make poisons. A painkiller. It will dull the worst of your physical pain."

When he holds the vial to Garrett's lips he drinks automatically. He's welcoming the poison into his body--not the first time, but nothing compares to this abrupt reminder of the thief's self-destructive nature.

"Give it a few minutes to work." Artemus sets aside the vial and watches Garrett's eyes. "Do you remember what you said to me last night?"

Garrett's head sinks to one side a little.

"I want you to know something. Whatever reaction you had to him was the right one. Sometimes it doesn't matter what the context is. The stimulation will force your body to do whatever the human body is programmed to do. Maybe it felt good. Maybe it brought you to climax. What happened to you was still rape."

There is no reply and for a moment he doesn't think the thief has heard. The tears come then. His and Garrett's both.

He kneels beside the bed on aching knees and holds Garrett in his arms. Neither of them will ever find their balance again. Artemus is surprised how little he cares.


End file.
